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Just a Phone?
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.
This is a feature of an individual phone's OS. Here in the US, Verizon will send you a text message after a directory enquiry. My phone - a rather humble LG - will parse through every text message and ask me if I want to save the number into my phone book or dial it.
-Montag
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.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000816MD K/qid=1116699557/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-1337833-4 985209
£20 for a basic phone. Why pay £80?
Kyocera released the Tu-kaSa very simple phone 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 for £20.
Why would anyone buy the £80 phone from Vodafone?
This looks like a quite good idea.
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The target audience it is aimed at has no need for the more advanced features, and so the manufacturer has ditched them in favour of focusing more on the user interface.
No offense intended to those who have earnt their years, but i have found through my tech supporting that after a certain point, as age increases technical ability decreases.
From an HCI view point having dedicated buttons for specific tasks is a great idea. It helps increase predictability, which is often a recommended key point in most style guides;
such as apple's
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExpe
Added to that it looks reasonably pretty, which helps users come away from it with a positive experience. There was a study where two usability equivalent ATM machines were tested by users. they came back and said that the prettier one was easier to use - even though they were designed in the exact same way, bar aesthetics. I can't remember the exact link but it can be found off one of the links here:
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rxb/Teaching/HCI/resour
provided they've actually pulled this off well, then i see it as a very good thing.
- Alan
I agree, and WTF is up with a battery sucking colour screen on a "basic" phone that doesn't take pictures or recieve media messages - what the hell do they expect it to be useful for?
I really don't get why people are always bitching about the lack of basic phones anyway. You want basic, you can buy a brand new, SIM free Nokia 1100 for less than £30 (below half the price of this new one from Voda, and in my experience Sagems are shit anyway although that's just personal preference). Alternatively, buy any other older model phone from eBay - they're not expensive.
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.
God spoke to me.
Actually my Sony Ericsson T610 does that, it highlights numbers in text messages and you can press 'call number'. In any case, I don't know why Directory Enquiries can't just send you a business card instead of a text, then anybody could just press the call button to dial or save the number directly to their phonebook.
I was conned by an old man in a cloak. It turns out those *were* the droids I was looking for.
Dialing emergency numbers through keylock is part of the GSM spec (at least for 118).
Sounds sensible to me, I mean it's a fiddle turning off keylock and a phone that's new to you. What's stupid though is when a phone doesn't reset the memory when you press a non-emergency number digit, i.e. it registers 1xx1xx8 as dialing emergency services.
"On the way out" as in, the service is disappearing and won't exist for all that much longer :)