Slashdot Mirror
Minimalist Cell Phones?
Trizor asks: "Most cellular telephones these days are loaded with features: cameras, broadband quality video, Internet, etc. but there are still people who want to just make phone calls. So I ask Slashdot: Are there any World-Compatible GSM cellular telephones that don't offer much beyond calling and an address book?"
The Vodafone Simply is the phone you seek.
That phone has recently been introduced here, too. Except that out of all the ringtones it has, none of them are actually a simple *RING*!
You think they could have got *that* right, I mean the reason people would choose this phone is because it's supposedly simple to use.
how about a phone that just rings?
A friend of mine has a new, does-everything motorola phone. It lets you use a mp3 file as a ring tone. So we recorded a 1970s vintage AT&T phone ringing. Sounds great!
I got one just yesterday from T-mobile for free with activation, but it is available online unlocked for cheap.
The Motorola V188
No camera.
No IR.
No bluetooth.
Standard mini-usb for syncing.
GSM quad-band (850, 900, 1800, 1900) with GPRS.
Yes, it is colour, but it's basically as minimal as you can get righ now.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Someone else has already mentioned that some places don't allow camera phones (or any devices that can take pictures) so I won't dwell on that.
My take on wanting a "just a phone" phone, is to have less circuitry drawing power, and to allow the designers to focus on solid RF and audio performance, and not waste R&D resources on shoehorning all the other crap into the same size package.
The other 'feature' I want to see is a ruggedized phone. Something a construction worker can use at work, and not have to worry about getting trashed in the first week.
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh