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John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

johnsphones.com

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Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#101

Post by beoba »

Tichy wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #14

This is a very good idea executed poorly. SMS has become a way of life and you'll be receiving messages that you can not read, also a paper phonebook requires that you carry a pen with you. Play it again, John, this time with a pager sized (text) display and I'll buy one. edit: added the (text), it does have a display but can't display text messages.

I would love it if it would print out the SMS on small slips of paper. Maybe it could have a scanner, too, so that you could write SMS on paper and feed it to the phone.

I think that would be pretty bad, you'd have to get paper refills approx every 5 seconds (and there'd need to be room for that paper to be stored somewhere), and the text recognition would have to either be perfect or extremely cumbersome.

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#102

Post by beoba »

ErrantX wrote: post #29
scrrr wrote: post #6

It's good for old people and aggressive people that frequently like to throw their phones away, because they are cheap. Nobody else will buy it just because its got a "minimalist design". The iPhone has only one button.. seems even more minimalist.

because they are cheap Cheap? You can pick up a cheap pay-and-go phone here in the UK for about £25 ($50) or less :) And it handles text messaging. I'm not sure it is even good for old people - from the engadget review it looks very fiddly.

*$40

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#103

Post by beoba »

robin_reala wrote: post #35
dagw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I won't buy that phone, I would be interested in a solid, beautifully designed phone that simple focuses on being a phone and doing that really really well. Think Vertu, but not crap and designed by someone with actual taste and not stupidly priced and...OK, so perhaps not Vertu.

If you can find one in good condition a Nokia 8910 might be for you. Titanium casing, well built, and old enough (2002) that it doesn’t have much beyond calling and txting.

Do they still sell compatible batteries though?

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#105

Post by andyking »

roel_v wrote: post #61
bambax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also very expensive. Basic Nokia phones that don't do much more than calls and SMS and that are very simple to operate and very sturdy, can be found (new) for around EUR 20.

Where do you find them for that money?

I've got a friend visiting me in the UK from the US, where she's on Verizon, which is incompatible with the GSM/UMTS networks we use here. I've got her one of these to use while she's over here - http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/ALCAT... - and mailed it to her in America so she can call me as soon as she steps off the plane.

It was £0.99 when I bought it, and has been as low as £0.01 recently - with the only catch being that you have to buy £10 worth of prepaid airtime when you buy the phone. Ideal for a couple of weeks' travel in a foreign country. (It's SIM-unlocked too.)

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#106

Post by robin_reala »

beoba wrote: post #103
robin_reala wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can find one in good condition a Nokia 8910 might be for you. Titanium casing, well built, and old enough (2002) that it doesn’t have much beyond calling and txting.

Do they still sell compatible batteries though?

Hmm, this might be a problem. Usually Nokia batteries are fairly compatible but it looks like the BLB-2 that the 8910 takes was only ever used in that.

http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/accessories/all-access...

Shame! There are plenty of 'genuine' ones on ebay if you want to risk it.

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#107

Post by iman »

pqs wrote: post #97
mseebach wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS-lifestyle or not, I'd take the Nokia (at 2/3 the price or less) for the 10+ years of industrial design that went into it. To be honest, this doesn't seem to be a phone for children or the elderly (neither of which have some sort of cognitive short circuit that keeps them from grasping a simple Nokia while allowing them to embrace the idioms of this particular phone) -- but rather a phone for hipsters who need to…

I also would take a Nokia, but they are not water proof!

I've showered at the beach with my nokia in the pocket of my bathing suit. It was fine. My nokia has fallen out of a moving vehicle. I drop it several times a day. It's been run over by a bicycle.

The thing is a rock.

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#108

Post by amalcon »

jacquesm wrote: post #14

This is a very good idea executed poorly. SMS has become a way of life and you'll be receiving messages that you can not read, also a paper phonebook requires that you carry a pen with you. Play it again, John, this time with a pager sized (text) display and I'll buy one. edit: added the (text), it does have a display but can't display text messages.

I don't know about that; I've pestered my carrier into turning SMS off for me, and I haven't missed it a bit.

Re: John's Phone: a minimalist cell phone

#109

Post by derekdahmer »

mseebach wrote: post #60
bambax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also very expensive. Basic Nokia phones that don't do much more than calls and SMS and that are very simple to operate and very sturdy, can be found (new) for around EUR 20.

SMS-lifestyle or not, I'd take the Nokia (at 2/3 the price or less) for the 10+ years of industrial design that went into it. To be honest, this doesn't seem to be a phone for children or the elderly (neither of which have some sort of cognitive short circuit that keeps them from grasping a simple Nokia while allowing them to embrace the idioms of this particular phone) -- but rather a phone for hipsters who need to…

I think you vastly overestimate the level of technology people can pick up.

My grandmother couldn't figure out how to work the new radio we got her - which just had two giant large dials. We got her a dead-simple cell phone and it was never used.

One thing she does know how to do is use the 12 button landline phone thats mounted on her wall, and this looks exactly like that and works nearly exactly like that. This would be perfect for her.

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