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Notes -
Do you mean a flip-phone as in something resembling a pre-iPhone cell phone? They still exist: some are clearly marketed to seniors, but I suppose there are others that like them for 2003 nostalgia. In terms of actual hardware, it looks like they can be found pretty cheaply new and unlocked (<$100 US). I wouldn't try to use an old one because the mobile standards have moved on and 2G seems to have been phased out.
In terms of actual use, I'd say be prepared to get good at T9 typing. It used to be a fairly common skill.
Never mind 2G. The Nokia 2720 Flip that I bought a while back advertises 4G and Wi-Fi, but when I tried a T-Mobile SIM in it recently, I got a message saying that "this phone is only partially compatible with our advanced network"; and I wasn't able to make a call or send a message when I tried.
I'm unconvinced about the benefits of T9. Multi-press typing always made more sense to me; this sequence of presses produces this character, predictably and reliably, with no guesswork needed in either side. I guess time will tell.
Band compatibility issue. It looks like they only made an EU version and a MENA/Asia version, and the band support on both models has close to zero overlap with the frequencies used in the US. This is a little surprising, because these days (afaik) it's pretty cheap and easy from a hardware standpoint to include as many bands as you want on a phone (at least for 4G/LTE; 5G is a bit of a different story). I guess they didn't anticipate any US sales.
Bands 5 and 41, the latter only present on the MENA/Asia model, are the only supported ones used in the US. T-Mobile US does not have any band 5 licenses as far as I know. You could get away with using it on AT&T or Verizon, but you'd have to determine which one of them owns the band 5 licenses in your area (confusingly this can be both AT&T and Verizon, one of the two, or neither of them) and it would not work nationwide. T-Mobile does have band 41 licenses (almost) nationwide, but they're in the process of repurposing that spectrum for 5G (and it was never meant to be used for full-coverage voice even when originally deployed as LTE).
If your only concern is voice and text, the bands you want for USA 4G/LTE compatibility are 2, 4, 5, 12, 13 (Verizon-only), and 71 (T-Mobile-only).
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