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Communications Hardware

Just a Phone? 357

Posted by timothy from the reversing-bloat dept.
LiquidCoooled writes "Vodafone in the UK have released a mobile phone which caters to those people craving a simple handset. For far too long we have been overpowered by extras we don't need; this looks to be a very nice solution. These phones feature a large format screen and buttons and a simple interface making this phone more accessible to a larger audience." I'd sure prefer better sound and simpler menus to the useless camera and gimmicks built into my current phone.
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Just a Phone? More

Just a Phone?

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  • Hey Timothy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'd sure prefer less editorializing and fewer dupes in my current Slashdot, but I guess we don't always get what we want.

  • it's simple, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by myc ( 105406 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:05PM (#12599867)
    it also has a large form factor, not unlike cell phones of yore (ala a Motorola V60). Not attractive.

    • Re:it's simple, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joe Random ( 777564 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:14PM (#12599929)
      it also has a large form factor, not unlike cell phones of yore (ala a Motorola V60). Not attractive.
      Actually, I think that's a great idea. There's a large, mostly-untapped market out there with the older generation, which consists of people who would definitely benefit from a larger handset with easier-to-read text and easier-to-press buttons.

      For example, my grandma doesn't need a camera or games, that kind of stuff just confuses her. Her eyesight isn't so great at close distances, so larger text (both on the screen and on buttons) is a plus. Also, she has mild arthritis, and a larger phone with larger buttons would be a lot easier for her to use.
      • I know it is an untapped market. In the article they thought it would be a good future idea to have a dedicated one touch help phone. This is already available in Switzerland and has been for the past year or so.
        • my gramdma has a "rufhilfe" button to wear like a watch that works within a 200m radius at home (connected via a base station, connected to pots like a modem). our attempts to give her a possibility of calling help when hiking or on mushroom foray failed because of to small buttons on cell phones.

          unless a phone does not represent the habits she already has and is not really willing to change (why should she?), a menu more simple would not really help her. she never looks at the display if someone calls her

      • I think it's nice... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by CustSerAssassin ( 883923 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:34PM (#12600056) Homepage
        Those phones are nice... As a Radio Shack associate who sells cell phones all the time, I agree with the statement in the article that mentions the "older crowd"... I get practically cussed out half the time because a career or middle age adult comes in to buy a phone, and they are incensed that most phones have cameras and camcorders and mp3 downloads and picture messaging. Sprint PCS (my personal carrier) has gone back to the basics with a new line of Sanyo phones. One model has speaker phone with no external LCD, one has a 1 line external LCD with speaker phone, and one has an internal antenna and no external screen; while all of those are flip phones, to me they represent a fundamental shift in the marketing target of the cellular industry. The cameras and frills nailed the younger audience, and now they are attempting to increase their base to include the older generation. The shift has become such that phone service at home is becoming obsolete slowly but surely.

        • Re:I think it's nice... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:55PM (#12600179) Journal

          I'm not a kid anymore, but I'm still in my twenties, thankyouverymuch, I'm about as IT literate as they come, and I still want a simple phone. My reasoning is as follows:
          • If I want to do something I want to do it properly, e.g take a picture, then I'll use a proper camera, writing / reading emails, then I'll do it on something with a decent screen, keyboard and a good choice of fonts.
          • If I work at a place where cameras are restricted (as I have done) then I don't want to have to leave my phone outside because it has a crappy camera built into it.
          • I have a general aversion to piling multiple gadgets into one device because it screws the upgrade cycle. Likewise for if one of the gadgets breaks, I don't want to lose everything
          • These additional features can impair the primary function I care about, e.g. using battery life.
          • I don't like being forced to pay for things I don't want


          I currently have an old Siemans phone. It has WAP and that's it for unused features. It's been kicked around an airport, dropped down a loo and is currently held together with sellotape. It still works and I'm still happy with it.
          All I really want in a phone is good transmission, txting, a mighty battery life and the ability to throw it at a wall and still have it work. Nothing to do with age of inability - just awareness of my actual needs.
        • Sprint PCS (my personal carrier) has gone back to the basics with a new line of Sanyo phones.

          I have one of those new "rugged" Sanyo phones. They are really nice since I have large hands and I get great reception where most of the tiny, weeny, itty-bitty flip-flop matchbooks phones are useless. They still have extra features I don't want such as internet and text messaging; I remapped the buttons to avoid accidentally turning them on.
      • Forget the old. What about us folks with big hands who have to put up with devices designed for smurfs.
      • Not only older people but a whole lot of people who do not dig "smaller is better".
    • I use a Motorola V60. It's a flip-phone and therefore completely dissimilar to these phones.
    • If the gods of UK daytime TV, Richard and Judy say its worth having, thats good enough for me.

      Where do I sign up?

    • Re:it's simple, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kebes ( 861706 )
      First off, from the pictures they aren't that big. Bigger than modern cellphones, but still small enough to fit in a jacket pocket easily.

      I think there is a big market for simpler (and hopefully cheaper?) phones like this. Alot of people (like my mom) carry their cell-phone in their purse anyway, so if it's a bit bigger, that's no big deal.

      As the article says, these new phones are not targetted at the young-and-modern crowd who want all the features and want to be able to carry it in their pocket without

      • It looks a lot like... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MsGeek ( 162936 )
        ...my Ericsson r520m. The big diff between it and my phone is that I doubt this one has Bluetooth.

        Another market for basic phones like these are people who can't carry cameraphones at work. I have friends who work at Lockheed Martin, for example, and cameraphones are strictly verboten there.

        I like mine because it's simple and it does the job. I also got mine for free, first when I signed up with T-Mobile, then the second one when I re-upped. My technology-scorning musician husband has one now, with a prep

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Color (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Detritus ( 11846 )
        You can put a better user interface on a device with a high-quality color display. Many monochrome displays have poor contrast and are hard to read if your eyesight isn't good.
    • Not attractive if your criterion of attractiveness is "how easy it is to stuff into bunghole". It's handy and probably well fitting to hold, much unlike the latest-and-smallest.

      I've had it enough with phones too small to hold comfortably, buttons you need toothpick to push. The best phone I ever had was Nokia 6250, a big "armored" phone. If they were to put updated internals (with BT and GPRS) into the same case, I'd run and buy one.

      And besides, the cellphone has three key functions (for me) 1. talking wi
    • Almost half the population don't have pockets, and thus the compactness of the phone isn't a big issue to them (these people are called "women" - have you heard of them? They carry phones in "purses").

      Perhaps for them it makes sense to have bigger phone, and fill the extra space with batteries. Wouldn't it be great if it only needed charging every two weeks? A bigger phone is also easier to hold in between the shoulder and neck to allow brief handsfree use.

  • Speed up the interface a bit! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) * on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:06PM (#12599870) Homepage
    This probably sounds a bit hypocrytical coming from someone who has written java apps for phones, but one thing that does annoy me about the modern handsets is the sluggish interface due to the anti-aliased true-type fonts, animation, heavy operating system overhead (relative to the CPU), colour menus and other crap that gets in the way when you just want to make a quick call. I've lost cound of the number of times I've called directory enquiries, got a number and tried to type it in before forgetting it, (I'm too lazy to use a pen) and after tapping away, realise it's missed the first one or two digits. My 7 year old wireless home phone handset can take the digits as fast as I can punch them in, so why can't a mobile costing 300-400 pounds?

    While I'm at it, am I the only one who wishes that directory enquiries could beam a number to your phone in a specific format, so that you could just call by viewing the text message and using a "convert to number" type option (in the UK we do get a text message, but it's a case of reading the message, remembering the number, backing out back to the main interface and typing it in)? Maybe other countries do this?

    Back to the topic, why not have "Advanced user", "Normal user" and "Dimwit" settings. Default to "Dimwit", mode which would have by default two menu options "stored numbers" and "settings". If stored numbers was picked, it would show a list of 9 numbers (maximum, or whatever will fit on the display) and a prompt text telling the user to just press key 1-9 to call, or 0 to cancel. If from the main menu the user starts typing in a number, the two options are "Store number", or "Cancel". The settings menu for the "Dimwit" user would only allow a change to another user type. Probably best not to use the word "Dimwit" in the option list though I guess...

    Really, it's not rocket surgery, using a phone though, and as long as the extras don't get in the way of normal functionality, who cares how many bells and whistles there are? If you don't want to use them, then don't. You wouldn't decide not to buy a car simply because it had too many gadgets, would you? Defaulting to predictive text is one of my pet hates though I hate predictive text, and always disable it, but plenty of handsets make doing so difficult or at least non-obvious.
    • Really, it's not rocket surgery

      Cause that would be just plain silly. :-)

    • "While I'm at it, am I the only one who wishes that directory enquiries could beam a number to your phone in a specific format, so that you could just call by viewing the text message and using a "convert to number" type option (in the UK we do get a text message, but it's a case of reading the message, remembering the number, backing out back to the main interface and typing it in)? Maybe other countries do this?"

      This is a feature of an individual phone's OS. Here in the US, Verizon will send you a

    • When I want to get a phone number out of a text on my Nokia I open the message then go to Options, select Use Detail and then Phone number.

      There are also options for email and web addresses.

      Though I bought the phone in India I imagine the software is pretty much the same as it is back home.
    • I picked up a Treo 650 last week, and it seems to be the solution to this problem while retaining the bells, whistles, and camera that I simply cannot live without.

      The PDA software (Palm OS 5) drives the interface. As a standalone piece of software developed for a separate device, it is in fact quite quick in accessing items and databases. Some careful modification for the dialers and communications features already present in Palm OS make it a hell of a cell phone in many respects, including interface spe
    • Rocket surgeons everywhere are shaking their heads in disbelief at your comment. ...
    • Your "dimwit" interface is way too complicated. Why can't I just have a phone with only the number keys, send and end, and a 7-segment LCD to show what number I've typed in?
  • I already have just a phone...it was the cheap one available from Verizon...I wish mine were more than just a phone...

  • THANK YOU! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KiranWolf ( 635591 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:07PM (#12599884) Homepage
    It's about time someone put an end to hardware feature creep on cellphones!

    I don't need cameras, a million different ringtones, games, instant messenger, etc on my cellphone. All I ask of it is that it make reliable calls, have a somewhat long battery life, and be easy to read (I have a hell of a time reading the text on my LG) and use.

    Cellphone companies in America, please take note.
    • What in the hell are you all babbling about. There have always been feature bare phones for the ludites, this article is pointless. Your grandma doesn't want a camera and they know this. You see, none of these basic phones usually get mentioned here, so everyone has this inane idea that the latest MS gadget is all that's available. Here in the UK you can by basic phones in shops found on every shopping street/mall, plus in many cornerstores / newsagents.

      • Re:THANK YOU! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by KiranWolf ( 635591 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:22PM (#12599976) Homepage
        Last time I went to buy a new phone (about 9 months ago), I was presented with a wide array of options at the local Cingular store.

        All of them expensive and all of them with tons of things that I will never, ever use. In the meantime, the one I did buy (the closest I could come to a barebones model, an LG-4020), sounds like ass, drops calls, and is loaded with bells and whistles that I don't need.

        Sure, it can play Beethoven, but it can't keep me connected to my girlfriend for more than 15 minutes.

        Sure, it can surf the web, but it has a battery life that, even without use, doesn't last more than a few days.

        Sure, it can get on AIM, but I have to cycle through all the ring volumes to put it on silent!

        My old Kyocera was the closest I've come to a really good phone. One touch could put it on silent. The call quality was pretty good, the battery life was spectacular, and it didn't have all these extra features that I'll never use.

        It just seems to me that designers and engineers could have better spent their time making a better telephone rather than making a telephone become something it isn't.

    • This is a good start.. then all we need is a phone like this and one with a bluetooth adaptor.

      Then it could be pluggable.. wireless headset? yep.. want to make a data connection? whip out your PDA or laptop.

      For me the ideal phone would just make calls on it's own and have the ability to route other kinds of traffic.

      I'm tired of paying extra to have a second rate PDA, a third rate camera etc all built into my phone since I tend to have all those things anyways. It all just adds an annoying level of compl
    • I don't understand why people are complaining about the excess of phones with many features. Nobody forced you to buy one; there are *plenty* of alternatives on the market if you just look past the ones being advertised the loudest. I use this [nokia.co.uk] one (black, though, not blue), it's extremely small, functional, and its single "feature" is a small white LED at the top which works very well as a flashlight. What less could you ask for?
    • I'm still waiting for the single button phone. It seems to me a single "IBM nipple" style directional controller is all my phone really needs. All the directory editing can eb accomplished on a PC and transferred via cable or bluetooth or heck even XML via WAP for a centralized phone directory. So I should be able to press down to scroll down through entries, press up to scroll up through entries, hold button for x seconds to dial entry and again to to disconnect. The screen just needs to be a simple two co

    • ...until I ended up with an MP3 player (and then later an iPod) and a digital camera I wanted to take with me along with my phone, and thought about getting a PDA and then realized I only have so many pockets and I'm not buying one of those gadget jackets.

      What frustrates me is that nobody makes a phone you can CUSTOMIZE the features on, like when you order it.

      You can do this with computers, why not phones? I'd be all over the company that let me pick the phone OS, form factor and goodies.

      Hmm, so, dre
  • Sometimes a phone is just a phone.

    And we like it that way.

    • Re:Freud....? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:49PM (#12600149)
      Sometimes a phone is just a phone.

      And we like it that way.

      I'm not gonna argue with you. If that's what you really want, more power to you. But does this count? If all you want is a simple phone, why on earth does it need an oversized display? Why will you need to send "the odd text message"?

      I think the real truth is that most people really do want more than "just a phone" but they're having a hard time understanding the phone they have or they're having a hard time understanding why it cost so much. This is not so much "just a phone" as it is a simpler and cheaper alternative... which, of course, have been available from just about every provider on earth for free for years.

      Go to the web sites of Verizon, Cingular and Sprint. You'll see very simple phones available for free with a contract.

      Go to Wal-mart. You'll see several variety of simple, no frills pay-as-you-go phones for about $50.

      Why are people arguing that they want something simple? It's a non-argument because they're available all over the place. If what you really want is to just make phone calls, buy any phone, press the numbers for the friend you want to call and hit send. Neary every cell phone on the market will then proceed to place your call. What could be simpler than that? If, however, the real truth is that you really want all the other features, but they're too complicated to make efficient use of, then please complain about that instead. You're far more likely to get what you want if you complain about the right thing.

      TW

  • Extras we don't need? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by croddy ( 659025 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:08PM (#12599888)
    For far too long we have been overpowered by extras we don't need

    speak for yourself; i for one am quite glad to be able to run midpSSH [xk72.com] anywhere there's a tower within range!

  • single button for emergencies..... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by charlieb0y ( 801344 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:10PM (#12599906) Homepage
    I don't know about that one. I don't know how many times I've gotten a call from someone who has his phone in his pocket and it presses the key that is speed dial to my phone. I'm not sure emergency services wants to hear people's drive-thru orders. (Please tell me I'm not the only one that happens to....)
    • Story about this...

      I had this happen to me riding a bike with a friend.. it happened to call another friend we were both talking crap about...

      The guy riding with me was going to town... talking all kinds of crap about other person..

      When we got back said friend was waiting prompty outside the guy's house wanting to fight him... haha i had to get them to cool down

      Had to be the most hilarious thing ever
      • The guy riding with me was going to town... talking all kinds of crap about other person..

        When we got back said friend was waiting prompty outside the guy's house wanting to fight him... haha i had to get them to cool down

        Perhaps the moral of the story is not to talk about others behind their backs. The cell phone was just a more direct example of how such talk can "get back to" the victim.

    • What's worse is phones that allow you to dial the emergency number *through the keylock*, like my nokia 3310. Here's a big hint to mobile manufacturers -

      A KEYLOCK SHOULD LOCK THE KEYS!

      For example, our emergency number in .au is 000.
      I have accidently called 000 a few times with the phone keylocked in my pocket. It will happily ignore every other keypress except 0 - 0 - 0 (and 1 - 1 - 2, for you outsiders). What's even more annoying about this particular nokia phone is that when you press a key with it lo

  • Camera Phones (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 )
    I have always wondered who came up with combining a camera and a phone. It is not a totally ridiculous combination, like say, sub-woofers and a vacuum cleaner. I can see the combination of transmitting visual and audio data through the same device. But still, why combine two items into one shoddy piece of equipment when you can have a two seperate high-quality devices?
    • The underlying idea of these combination devices is that you always have your phone with you.

      So, if there is a camera built into my phone, then as well as always having my phone with me, I always have a basic digital camera with me. Which is good, since people like taking candid snaps, so having a digital camera always with you is fun, even if it is a cheap and simple one.

      Ditto phones with calendars, simple video games, ssh clients, and so on.

    • Re:Camera Phones (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Who came up with combining a camera with a phone? The phone companies, that's who.

      How can you flog your next "money spinner" product (MMS) if no one has either a.) a camera on their phone to take pics, or b.) a phone which is capable of receiving the pics.

      The next step will see full video capabilities built in as standard in all phones (unlike just the top of the range ones at the moment) for the 3G money making.

      All these gimmicks are in there because without them the phone companies would have no way o

  • Richard & Judy (Score:3, Funny)

    by igorthefiend ( 831721 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:14PM (#12599932)
    So the marketing message here is that this is a phone than can be used even by complete morons?

  • if you don't want the features just don't use 'em! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by trash eighty ( 457611 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:15PM (#12599935) Homepage
    seems strange to pay more for a phone thats lacking less stuff. sometimes these features are useful anyway. i always thought a camera phone was pointless then i lost my existing camera on a holiday, at least i had a backup handy!
    • The extra features can get in the way if the menus aren't designed properly. I don't know why phone makers generally can't design a good menu, but oh well. At least I can figure things out, but there seems to be a needless number of button clicks to do basic tasks.
      • My old phone quit on me finally after almost two years (and after falling down a stair case while flipped open), and the only cheap solution comparable to my original ended up being a camera phone. First small problem I have with it is its bulkiness (granted the old phone was tiny), which is no doubt due to there being dual color screens and a camera. Second, I got a flip phone for a reason: flippy part covers all the buttons so none get pressed when phone is in pocket, saving me the hassle of turning on
    • you are missing the point. We are all capable of not using features, but incoporating them makes the phone more difficult to use, because the interface is more complex, the manual huge, and the speed of the phone is slower. Im sure my first cellphone didnt have a concept of a 'boot time', you just turned it on and dialed. These days its like waiting for Windows XP to load.
      I think this is a great idea, hopefully the start of a long overdue backlash against feature creep in all electronics. I have a combined
    • Works great, unless you work someplace where, let's say, cameras are forbidden.
    • Why would anyone buy a fork when they can get a spork? Esp. for the same price?

      Complexity is not without costs. The extra, unused, features do interfere. Longer and deeper menus take more user time and effort to navigate. Also, the phones with more features are also the one's that are slower to respond, causing missed digits and navigation errors (e.g. I can enter the sequence to add a new phonebook # quickly and without looking, but sometimes my phones stalls, and then I end up in some different menu whe

    • Artists and architects talk about the concept of "negative space". An English professor of my acquaintance actually wrote a book (not yet published) with a subtitle of "Absences, gaps, and other sexy spaces".

      Let me give you an example: my mom hates sunroofs/moonroofs on cars. I don't know why, but she does. When she bought a new car a few years ago, it worked out that there were two nearly identical models, one with the sunroof and one without for the same price. She chose the one without, because for


    1. as a telephone to talk to people. I don't use my landline much, but haven't dropped it yet.

    2. as a text pager. My system monitors and trouble report mail addresses all route to my phone.

    3. tetris on the shitter

  • let the user choose... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 3mp3r0r ( 652657 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:16PM (#12599941) Homepage
    It would be great if users could choose what features they wanted on their phones rather than just having to choose from some standard models.
    Users must be allowed to select what they really need and nothing else.

  • I applaud Vodafone. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by amper ( 33785 ) * on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:17PM (#12599950) Journal
    I, for one, am heartily sick and tired of the technology industry catering to the ill-informed desires of children rather than to the real needs of the adults who actually pay the bills.

    I have no need or desire for a camera in my phone. I do not have the time to waste on text messaging through a cramped interface. I think that video on a cell phone is idiotic. I don't need a game on my cell phone to exercise my brain. I don't need my cell phone to play music.

    What i need is:

    1. A phone that is comfortable to use.
    2. A phone that can be operated easily with one hand.
    3. A vibrating ringer that doesn't disturb others.
    4. A speakerphone for when my hands aren't free.
    5. High speed IP access (preferably via a wireless connection like Bluetooth) for my PDA and laptop.
    6. A simple interface.
    7. Long battery life.
    8. Conservative, modern styling
    9. Worldwide coverage.
    10. Macintosh compatibility.
    11. Good customer service.
    12. and a reasonable price.

    Everything else is unecessary and unwanted. I'm a business person, and I want a tool that helps me do my job and stays out of my way. I'm not a child with ADHD that needs to be constantly entertained.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:I applaud Vodafone. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @03:14PM (#12600282) Homepage
      What you don't get is that these kids with ADHD are more profitable than you because of that need to be constantly entertained. Not to mention the fact that cell-phone companies are working very hard to build their customers into constant addicted media consumers so they can charge per view/listen. Remember, today's kids with ADHD are tomorrows adults with ADHD.

      • Okay kid... Focus = Good.

        Todays with ADHD (if they even actually have it), will out grow it with puberty. Todays adults with ADHD are members of a fictional mental illness created by drug marketing.

        Todays adults wiht ADHD need a vacation, and a stiff drink.
    • you'll want a nokia 6310i [nokia.com] then.

      Reliable, insane battery life, worldwide (well, tri-band), conservative and modern, etc

      no speakerphone, but everything else that you want, i think

    • I, for one, am heartily sick and tired of the technology industry catering to the ill-informed desires of children rather than to the real needs of the adults who actually pay the bills.

      You may want to re-think that. The youth of (North) America commanded some $1.5B last year or before. "Children" are working part- or even full-time jobs, living on their own, paying bills and purchasing their own luxury items.

      Everything else is unecessary and unwanted. I'm a business person, and I want a tool tha

  • pointless? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shinaku ( 757671 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:18PM (#12599955) Homepage
    £80 for prepay? Vodafone already sell phones cheaper, which are just as easy to use, like the nokia 1100, last time I checked they were selling for about £20-25.
  • Those phones look pretty big, which is probably desirable for many people, such as the elderly. I would like something along the same lines, but in a very small form factor, so it doesn't take up much room in my pocket. Why should I shell out for a bunch of features I never use in order to get something so small?

  • Why must a simple phone be so ugly? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <john.jmaug@com> on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:19PM (#12599965)
    I'm not one who enjoys a phone that just lets me call people (I have used and enjoy all the extra features my phone has) but I would think the people who just want a phone for calling still care about the look of the phone. Those are the two ugliest phones I've ever seen. Usually when something is that ugly it makes up for it with all the extra things it can do. I can't imagine these two phones selling well at all, and why can't there be a flip phone? It's nice having a large screen, but at least a flip phone can protect that screen from scratches/dust and whatever might be in your pocket when you stick the phone there.

  • Similar phone very popular in Japan (Score:3, Informative)

    by JaF893 ( 745419 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:23PM (#12599984) Journal
    Kyocera released the Tu-kaSa very simple phone [kyocera.co.jp] in Japan and it proved to be very successful. But the thing I find strange about this story is that Vodafone are basically selling a phone with features equivalent to a nokia 3310 for £80! You can get a NEW pay as you go phone on Amazon.co.uk [amazon.co.uk] for £20.

    Why would anyone buy the £80 phone from Vodafone?
  • If I were to carry a cellphone, aside from being able to use it as a telephone, the only "feature" I would want on it would be the ability to plug in a ring tone. Something about the Flintphone ringing on my hip just reeks of "cool".

  • Older users (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:33PM (#12600045) Homepage
    The need for a simplified handset, especially for older people, is borne out by a survey conducted by consultancy firm Cap Gemini last year.

    But is it because older people can't learn as quickly and are set in their ways, or is it because they are older and wiser and refuse to be fished in to subscription and usage fees for gimmicky services of dubious usefulness? I have noticed that the young people who are keen to fiddle with every silly bell and whistle are also more likely to fall for crap like "Forward this email to everyone you know and Bill Gates will pay you $100 for every address because he is testing out his new email system."

    Sometimes you just want to be able to pick up something and use without having to study a manual and remember sequences of buttons. Imagine what life would be like if the same so-called level of innovation was applied to common household items like the kitchen faucet or the toilet.

    • Imagine what life would be like if the same so-called level of innovation was applied to common household items like the kitchen faucet or the toilet.

      What, you mean your toilet doesn't have a built-in camera? Get with the times, man!

  • One feature (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kirun ( 658684 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:35PM (#12600063) Homepage Journal
    There's one feature I think all phones should have: if anyone selects a ringtone with that @#$% frog in it, the phone should detonate the battery and spray acid in their face.

  • OK, I know I sound like a curmudeon here, but how about a phone that actually *rings*? I don't need to hear a stupid off-tone rendition of anything, and the last thing I want to hear is some damn Britney Spears wannabe.

    If it weren't for the size factor, I'd take one of these [slashdot.org] any day.

    • My gay mp4/camera/gadget-o-phone had a selection of crappy ringing tones so i did what any geek would do and downloaded a sample of an old fashioned ringing noise. Simple.
    • I used the data cable and a WAV to AMR (I think that's the format) converter program to make my Nokia 3210 phone sound like a Western Electric model 554 landline telephone's mechanical ringer. I could have just microphoned the real thing but I found a vintage telephone website that had a good recording, so I just converted that and set my ring volume to the maximum.

      The "pick up the bloody phone already " synapse fires more quickly for me when exposed to proper telephone ringing sounds.
  • What's the price? I have two phones from before when they added all the extra crap. I can text and phone with them just fine. Why would I want to buy a new one when mines worked fine for 5 years or so..

  • Please stop the madness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meatflower ( 830472 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:42PM (#12600102)
    Everytime a cell phone is discussed on slashdot we get cries of everyone going "I wish they'd just have a phone you could call people on! wa wa wa camera wa wa wa ring tones wa wa wa...."
    These comments are usually brought up because the poster thinks they are being witty, pointing out something that does not exist, while in fact, they are WRONG.

    Almost every carrier offers a base model phone, usually for free, for becoming a new customer. Sometimes these free phones still come with extra features which may upset the "simple phone denizens". Shame on the carriers for trying to give you more for free! They will surely pay for this!

    Thats where carriers who allow you to use whatever phone you want with their SIM card come into play. I know Cingular in the US does this and I"m sure countless others do. Then you can buy whatever old phone from 1995 you want that only makes phone calls.

    Even still, modern carriers still offer bare bones phones. Sure, they don't put them on the front page of their websites but they exist. I just found this phone in about 3 seconds on nokia.com and Cingular is even offering a plan with it.
    http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/1261 [nokiausa.com]
    This phone came out years ago, this whole "bare bones" phone thing is NOT NEWS. You really think the first cell phones were bloated with features? I remember using a Motorola Startac, and that didn't even have an LCD. So stop your whining and actually look at the products available.
    • Except that

      1) It's not a flip-phone. Flipping closed isn't a convenience feature, it's a necessity in any phone that I carry.

      2) Awful, hard-to-press Nokia buttons.

      3) I want simple and uncomplicated, not old tech. That phone appears to use D-AMPS, which is on its way out.

  • Just an Ear Phone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:49PM (#12600152) Homepage Journal
    I'd like to see a Bluetooth earpiece that's "just a phone", with an "answer" button, and a speeddial scroller that says each name, then calls. With all the other functions, like PIM, internet, display, texting, etc, all in the phone carried in my pocket (or nerdbelt). Make it a stereo earset, and I'll feel like everything has converged in my ear, effortlessly. A pocket mainframe, with Bluetooth terminals and 3G WAN, is right where I want to be.

  • Seems it's prepaid only (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mgkimsal2 ( 200677 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @02:57PM (#12600189) Homepage
    I was asking for this for awhile, but people seem to not be able to *just* make a new phone that lets me make calls without also trying to push cameras, IM, texting and other stuff. So now someone says they're responding to consumer demand, but put it in a prepaid only option. Why is this still so hard to get?

    The other big issue with cell phones is that NO ONE will sell you a new phone at a decent price without signing multi-year contracts. Even for people like me who've been with the same company for years (7 with sprint), they treat you like dirt.

    All major companies adopting the same anti-consumer behaviour seems to be acceptable, but it feels to me somewhat like collusion. Obviously I can't prove this, but I can easily imagine major companies all agreeing to push the same multi-year contract terms at people. If they all do it, there won't be anywhere for pissed off customers to go, except to prepaid, which is also a pricey proposition as far as I can tell.

    argh!
  • It astounds me how many members of the Slashdot crowd (usually quick to jump on the new and more-featured) appreciate a simple phone.

    Maybe some Slashdotters' lives are already too complicated. Maybe they already have dedicated PDAs and digital cameras. Maybe they only use their phones to order pizza from their moms' basements.

  • I'm waiting for version 2 (Score:5, Funny)

    by noidentity ( 188756 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @03:05PM (#12600237)
    Hopefully it will have more features than version 1.
  • Nokia 9210. A bit of a brick but I always have the information I need with me. Plus I can plug it into a Sun box as a console should i need to.

  • I have an LG series (Score:3, Informative)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @03:19PM (#12600308) Journal
    There are buttons along the side of the phone that cancel the call. You go and grab the phone to answer it and sometimes you cancel the call. Good phone otherwise.

  • not just a phone (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @03:24PM (#12600337)
    The thing has a huge screen, menus, and text messaging; it is definitely not "just a phone".

    "Just a phone" would have 12 keys (0-9, *, #), a one-line display, a call button, and a hang-up button. Well, maybe a mechanical switch to turn off the ringer.

  • What's next... (Score:3, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @03:30PM (#12600368)
    A cellular morse communicator?

  • My good old Nokia 1100 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `oarigogirdor'> on Saturday May 21, 2005 @06:22PM (#12601244) Homepage
    The 1100 is cheap, small, reliable, nice-looking, easy to use - and an easy to replace, dirt cheap changeable cover protects the lcd display. Guess it's kinda old and low tech by now, but it's working really well, so no complains on the phone part of the phone.

    The built-in games, however... Snake II is nothing special, and Space Impact must be the shittiest Moon Patrol wannabe ever. Tetris would have been much better. Still, a good phone.

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