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Motorola Develops Bare-Bones Phone
tunabomber writes "Whenever a review of the latest cellphone/camera/MP3 player/GPS receiver/fish finder/tazer convergence gadget is posted on Slashdot, the first posters are usually quick to chime in by saying they just want something with decent battery life, reception, ergonomics, etc. Those posters' prayers may now be answered, because Motorola's new 'dumb' phone has been designed with these traits in mind. Notable features include an E Ink display and dual antennae to improve reception. The phone is slated to become available before the end of the year."
It's about time. It seems like every basic phone on the market right now is a cheap piece of junk with poor reception and no durability. It's good to see someone taking this niche of the market seriously. It looks like they've put some serious thought into this phone, making it not only useful but stylish.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWWhy so little features? I'd want something more advanced.
...wish it had a camera ;-)
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
/jumps around //always celebrates in text ///has nothing else to say
must have been invented by Cheryln Chin, motorola VP of software
But I want a phone that has 8000 features including getting my ESPN newsclips in 5 second video segments, playing badly made games, and having a look like it was designed by 12 year old boys with crayons! And so help me god if the battery lasts 8 hours or I ever get more than 2 bars worth of signal!
I read the internet for the articles.
How about I just stick with my old Nokia 6310i
It's a neat idea to have a feature-free phone. But seriously, there are millions of those going on ebay cheap because silly people are upgrading to a phone that does polyphonic catatonic ringtones, online horoscopes, and realtime 3d su-doku. That's got to be cheaper than buying any new Motorola phone.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
... how many of those phones will even get a quarter or the eight hour talk time and 12 day stand-by time claimed for the Motophone?
Pity there's nothing in the article about what this thing will cost eventually.
-- Cheers!
We have now mobile phones for many, MANY years.... but still the development is goin on!
.. oh wait.. we already had such mobile phones 10 years ago.. WHAT HAPPENED??
One day we might finally have mobile phones that just make calls... that will shut up without overwriting the firmware... that wont require a virus killer because there is nothing worth writing a virus for... and that will have keys large enough for people who do not carry a ballpen around all the time...
Thorstein Veblen followers may agree that this phone is merely an entry point.
/.'ers like me.
It's not desirable on it's own outside of a few
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
"Notable features include ringing, handset with built-in speaker and mic, and two-way communication. Sources who didn't want to be named wondered if there would even be a market for such a thing in this day and age but marveled at it's simplicity. That is until someone walked into the meeting with a similar device circa 1955!"
If you read the very last paragraph in the article, it states that the phone isn't going to be available in the US unless someone will carry it (and it doesn't have a way for Verizon et al to nickel and dime you to death with photos, ringtones etc, so good luck getting them to do it) or it's sold in drugstores alongside no-name brands, and I wouldn't be surprised if Motorola makes up some BS excuse about how it's beneath Moto to sell that way.
So for now, those who want just a simple phone (like my mom) are out of luck. Even text messaging and other bells and whistles go unused on her phone.
On the upside, she got the phone for free with her plan and just doesn't use the features she doesn't want, but she's continually asking me if she gets charged for text messages (not unless it's someone other than T-Mobile who sends them and nobody sends her anything, so I don't see why she worries).
i am a soviet space shuttle
No wireless. No USB. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
which continues to offer new, inexpensive phones. And will it appear in the United States? For that to happen, Reith says, Motorola will have to find a willing service provider or agree to sell its product alongside no-name brands at drugstores.
Looks like you'll be haviong to go to eBay or GSM Importers for these phones.
The number rows (1,2,3) should be in perfect line-up rows on any phone so you don't have to look to hit the numbers. They are mostly lined up here, but there's no reason they could not have gone the rest of the way.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Now it just needs bluetooth so I can add one of These
Make America grate again!
I will take one.
I have absolutely no use for most of the features on my current phone (a Nokia 6030). I set the color scheme to grey because the colors annoy me and make it hard to read. I set it to vibrate or beep once usually because that's all I need, and when I use a "normal" ringtone, I prefer the non-musical kind. I don't use the internet on my phone because a cent per KB adds up pretty quick. But I digress...
Please, Motorola, let us buy these phones.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
Fashion has always been a cyclical market. Trends become fads only to have reactionary movements back to basics. It's about time for 'popular style' of phones to become phones again.
We'll never see this product in the states because the article said that they are marketing rechargers powered by bicycling. What American still does physical activity like that?
That has essentially the same feature set as the Motorola Sprint phone I have now, but it's less bulky.
FTFA: It is well suited in several ways to a phone designed for poor countries, says Motorola's chief technology officer, Padmasree Warrior.
Padmasree Warrior. Sounds like their board meetings take place in a steel cage with investors chanting "Two man enter! One man leave!"
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The display is very easy to see even in full sunlight but uses much less energy than an LCD, Wilcox says.
What if it's dark out? Is there a backlight for use at night, or is it just not seeable then?
How durable is eink? Article says no glass or plastic cover is needed, will this thing resist wear and tear that might try and ruin it?
This looks wonderful! I am definitely part of that niche that wants simplicity in a phone.
However, I'm still not a cell phone customer, because the service is still too expensive. I could afford it, but paying $500-$800 a year for phone service just isn't appealing to me. Unfortunately, there's not much motivation for cell companies to work on pushing down prices when such a great portion of the population seems perfectly willing to stay at $40+ per month price point. So until it gets cheaper, I'll be sticking with my Skype permanent phone number for under $4 per month, thank you very much.
I've owned two gadget-laden phones in my life, and I'm still pining for my original StarTac. I never use any of the fancy features on my colorful phones, aside from (every once in a blue moon) text messaging. That, plus the size, plus the E-ink display, plus the green implications of being able to charge my phone during my bicycle commute to work, makes me eager to see this on the market. Although I'll probably have to order it from overseas. :(
... But I'm worried! Motorola has a really bad track record for reliability on their cell phones, especially the lower models.
Will this be a premium phone with high cost, but no features? I'd be willing to pay for it if it's solid.
Currently through my friends I know of 6 v180's that have died within a couple months, a hand ful of the v2xx series, and several razr's that just stop working in one way or another. All with under a year of usage.
The pictures of this phone actually do it justice - it looks amazing in proportion to the hand. See for yourself. As someone who wants my phone to "just be a phone," I'll be buying one, without a doubt.
When the get to the ATM output type of paper phone from the movie UltraViolet....I'm in....until then I just want one I can't leave in the wrong city, state or country.....
They are right about India, the look of the Moto over the Nokia is going to make it a big seller over there.
Motorola should offer this phone to Cingular/Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile as part of a reduced-cost "pay as you go" service. The reason is simple: people don't really need most of the fancy features to start with. They need a phone that is reliable, offers good reception quality, and the ability to support wired headsets or Bluetooth wireless headsets.
Let me let you in on a secret.
if it's GSM and triband then you will be able to easily buy one via a secret website...
www.ebay.com
dont tell anyone, it's a really obscure place that very few know of.
I have purchased many cellphones that are not available here from ebay. MY daughter has sported a cellphone that is uber-trendy that oohs and aaahs from classmates on a regular basis from that secret website.
IF it is available over there, you bet it will be available UNLOCKED on ebay minutes after.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's 12 days of standby, e-ink screen, and charge-by-bike make up for Moto's shoddy qualiy control.
The next version of the phone, should have a camera on it. And, to keep it cheap, it will have just one pixel.
Have you read my journal today?
Yeah, but it's not a FLIP PHONE! I will NEVER buy a non-flip-phone!!!
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
Why is it not deemed newsworthy that Nokia has had cheap barebones cellphones for years, in their 11xx and 21xx lines?
The headline should really read: "Motorola develops phone with e-ink display"
Example, getting pictures off a picture phone without paying for them. Any digital camera can do this just fine. The Razor even comes with a 5 pin USB connector. However no driver support available unless you pay for a "Mobile connectivity Package" Or hack your phone.
I expect there is some way that the cell companies will take advantage of this new cell phone. Such as special connection fees, or per antennae costs. Or the E-Ink requires a special interface option.
I use the Razor for an example because outside of greed, there is no reason that the razor's driver could not be made available to the customer for easier uploading and downloading of pictures, sounds, and video clips.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I've had loads of phones over the years, most with bluetooth, colour screens, java support, radio, etc etc and I've never had a problem with basic phone calls or battery life. Perhaps this problem is limited to the US (I'm in the UK). You lot have taken to mobile phones much more slowly than Europe and the Far East, so perhaps there's less competition for decent kit.
Well the main reason I had to upgrade is the move from CDMA to TDMA. Did I mention it was hand cranked? :)
As long as there's a GSM version that speaks a language I understand (even just barely), I'd gladly order one of these babies from overseas. This is everything I've been dreaming of in a phone.
There's nothing in there about price, but plenty about their target region: India (and by extension, you can imagine China, SE Asia, and parts of Africa in there too). So you can get two things out of it:
A) It will be cheap.
B) It will not be sold to us rich Westerners.
Of course, it is just what many folks are looking for.
This is more or less everything I want in a new phone. Just the phone! No frills, utilitarian and good battery life.
crazy dynamite monkey
I worked at EInk around the same time this phone was being developed. The main reason why I was told it has so little features was that it's being marketed as a substitue for land lines in certain parts of the world. I actually got to see the phone a while back and it's pretty impressive at how small and cheap this type of technology has become.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
What develop? They had this tech since the days of the first cell phones. They are just bringing it back to the market (and not in the developed world). What's next, "developing rotary dial phones?
If I buy/import one of these phones that was made for a cellular carrier in India or Brazil? I believe that US carriers use different wireless technologies than the rest of the world? And, even if it were compatibible, I'd have to convince the the wireless carrier to program my phone to work with their network. Will they do that? In the past, when I switched from one carrier to another, I couldn't even get them to let me re-use the same handset - they always seem to want you to use a phone provided by them (. . . there oughta be a law. . .grumble. . . grumble).
I mean, I don't know, but I would think if I bought one of these phones, I would have a neat phone that I can't use because it doesn't work with my wireless provider.
$50, has flashlight.
http://www.nokia.se/phones/1100/
Custom built phone? Why not? Computer sellers allows custom built PCs specified by users and this is being done for desktops, servers and laptops. Why not phone as well?
I'm a geek. I've got an MS in computer science and a fetish for good UI and I hate every cell phone I've had. I want one of these and predict Verizon won't let me have one.
Anyone else think it is more than a little insensitive to label a phone targeted to developing countries as "dumb"? Nice, TechnologyReview. Reaaaal nice.
That's sooo Osama bin Laden.
When I think of a "bare bones" system, I think of one that I can customize and add what features I choose to it. If they could develop a small-sleek flip phone with the ability to add on all the bells and whistles of your choosing, while being able to customize the menus to display on the features you have selected, then I would be in cell phone heaven.
What? You get charged for recieving text messages!? No wonder it never took off across the pond...
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
That sucks about as much as it figures.
Cingular decided to raise rates on my phone by $5/month because it was a TDMA phone. I decided to look at my options.
Most months I talk on my cell phone for about 12 minutes.
For less than $100 I could get a phone for a prepaid plan. If I only buy the minimum number of minutes to keep my phone number, Cingular and T-Mobile both charge $100/year. For this, on Cingular you get about 400 minutes/year; on T-Mobile you get at least 1000 minutes per year.
I tried both, and settled on Cingular - as I get better reception in my neighborhood. Overall, I was happier with T-mobile's attitude.
Total cost: $30 for phone - including 40 minutes for a month, and $100/year after that.
Previous rate: $30/month.
I found that by switching to a prepaid plan, my rate is effectively $8.33/month.
Go figure.
Hmm... this sounds too much like a commercial.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
Not everyone wants to do that. A lot of people want to just be able to walk into a store and buy a phone that has a warranty and official support. Not everyone is comfortable with buying off ebay in general also. People who are on Slashdot aren't typical of the general population. Don't put yourself in the place of a Slashdot reader. Put yourself in the place of the vast majority of the cellphone-using morons who blab on the phone while driving and almost get me killed because they don't bother to pay attention.
i am a soviet space shuttle
The article mentioned a future feature of having an LED flashlight. Now there is a feature I would actually want. Ingenious! How many times have we all tried to use the phones backlit display as a flashlight, why not go all the way and it's so damn simple to implement. Whenever you need a flahslight, you never seem to have one. Cell phone companies (I'm looking at you Motorola, LG, Nokia, etc.) please put this in your phones, be they relatively featureless or featurful. The utility of this far exceeds an mp3 player or video player.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Antennae is only appropriate when applied to zoology. The correct term for the plural of radio antenna is "antennas." Source: New Oxford American Dictionary
If I could rearrange the keyboard, I'd put U and I together.
I hope that you'll be able to get it. A lot of countries have large English-speaking populations so you will likely be in luck although not certainly. Still, though, as I replied in another reply to my comment, it really needs to be sold through official channels for a lot of people to be willing to buy one.
I would think about buying Mom one if it does become possible, though, because she doesn't want a lot of features, either, and does not have a triband phone but does go to Greece sometimes to visit family there, and her current phone won't work there (which was interesting to try to explain).
i am a soviet space shuttle
I think ebay has a market that is a little bigger than just slashdot readers.
>it states that the phone isn't going to be available in the US unless someone will carry it
Since TFA states that the phone is primarily designed for the non-US market, I assume it will be a GSM phone. Since your Mom has T-Mobile, which is a GSM network, she can just buy one and put a T-Mobile chip in it. Granted, it probably wouldn't be quite that easy if she doesn't already have a T-Mobile GSM phone, but I'm willing to bet it'll be doable. People already are using Europe-only phones in the US.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I hate that term. They might as well say "the poor, unwashed, unfashionable welfare slag" model. Certainly deliberate marketing ploy... however, despite being labeled an "Entry-Level Phone" I just got a Moto L2. No camera, no PDA, just a goddamned phone with some decent messaging features--but it's a Quad-Band GSM "World Phone," unlike damn-near every other f'ing phone sold in the U.S. So, while all my other friends with their $500 ham-sandwich sized Media/PDA phones crippled to [C|T]DMA are left silent while overseas, I just power my little "entry-level" phone up at the gate anywhere in the world while they fumble with their ghetto-ass only-works-in-North-America busted up bling.
Oh...and it was free.
Although the phone may be great for its simplicity and may also function well, I wonder what Motorola has in mind?
One: The phone will be cheap, but how cheap? Is it really affordable for the common user in a developing country? Does it really bring technology that isn't yet necessary and make it available to everyone?
Two: Is Motorola just trying establish a base in these developing countries? While it may seem altrustic to offer cheaper phones, Motorola is a commercial enterprise and cares about one thing more than anything else: The Bottom Line ($). I can see them establishing brand recognition and ubiquity in an emerging market, so that when the middle class grows, Motorola will already be the "name" to have.
..walk in, get the cheapest no frills tracphone, 20 bucks, comes with ten minutes free and you can buy additional minutes. About as barebones as you can get, albeit the minutes cost. It's good for occassional use basically. I don't know if it could be activated by other carriers but for what it is worth it is a motorola c139 model. I just got one for a backup phone (and phone number), I don't intend on using it a lot though, have a regular phone through verizon for that. The minutes last for 60 days and roll over as long as you buy some more minutes, or you can get a year card.
I've had a Nokia 1100 for a couple of years and love it. It is VERY bare bones, but has better reception than some other cells that were much more expensive. I don't use it much--mostly when traveling and to have for emergencies. This Moto phone looks like a step in the right direction to me.
Can you hold a two hour conversation on it?
It's an absurdly thin (9mm) phone, not a bare bones phone. The lack of features has a lot more to do with it's exotic display that with the demand for a simple device.
I'm not one of the anti-gadget brigade myself, but if I was I'd definitely swap the thinness for more battery life, a bigger keypad, a backlight and the feeling that it won't snap in half at any moment.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
The hat switch and 2 of the buttons could be eliminated. All my mom needs a regular telephone keypad (0-9, #, *), a power switch, and a single pickup/hangup button.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
I don't. She does. It depends on the provider and plan. (I'm hearing-impaired. Being charged per message would suck). It is starting to take off, though -- I see more contests that require you to text a code to a number, and the local baseball stadium (Busch, St. Louis, MO) lets you send a message to a certain number to enter contests, or to have a short message printed on the big marquee board before the game starts).
i am a soviet space shuttle
"Looking for more customers, the company did extensive market research in poor countries."
Why not look right here at home? Went shopping this weekend at Verizon for a cellphone for my elderly father-in-law. They don't sell any phones (there) that are a little larger, with a decent-sized display, simple full-sized buttons, and a simple "drop-in" charger like a home wireless phone. There's a massive market for old people - all of our parents - who are still out and about (or in our case, being shuttled from nursing home to hospital to doctor's office) and we'd like to keep in contact with. Most of them have money - if you can afford to visit the doctor you can afford a cellphone.
While they're at in, provide a simple interface for speed dial numbers, a dial tone when you pick up the phone, and dialing and disconnecting without having to use the "send" and "end" buttons - make them work like the landline phones these people are used to.
Finally, it's no good if only one carrier has this. Every carrier with "friends and family" has people with elderly family members that need phones.
I work for a Big Honkin' Aerospace Company and have had problems for the past few years with upgrading cell phone. In addition to not having any cells in classified areas (no big deal - we have "leave your phone here' boxes outside every lab) we also aren't allowed to have a camera inside company buildings (due to trade secret issues). That extends to camera phones and PDAs. As a result, you're stuck picking the one token phone at the dealer that is cameraless.
I'm glad somebody's getting on board with this, although I wonder if it will become a real trend or not. After all, it's a lot easier for a Marketing department to pitch bells and whistles features than sell a simple product that works well. We'll just have to see how it goes...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I knew it, they want us to use cell phones cause those little chips inside get close to our brains and then they read our minds and transmit our ideas. I knew thats how they got this idea, and my idea for the Matrix movies (well, the second two were my idea), and then that whole Phantom Console idea is mine (well, the part about getting people to pay you for a product that doesn't exist.)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I work on government contracts in a secure building and they don't allow cameras of any sort onto the premises. I've been trying to find a phone that's relatively slim and doesn't have a camera. Goddamnit, it's been frustrating -- NO ONE MAKES ONE. I actually considered buying a RAZR and sticking a nail through the camera just so I could have my phone at work. It's about damned time someone made a phone like this. I'll be glad I waited.
Yeah, if a geek is available to set it up (me) it can be made to work for her. She would not go onto eBay herself to buy it, though, and the general public won't do that even if they know that it can be done in the first place. That would be the barrier to widespread use of the phone here.
Unless, of course, Motorola DOES come up with a way to officially distribute it here.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Not only that, but it's not expensive enough for Verizon. Some people don't realize, but US cellphone carriers *like* the idea that, if you want to buy a phone without locking yourself into a 5 year contract, it'll cost you something like $400 for what Verizon is offering for "free". They want to have the power to lock you into their plan for a couple years, and push the phones that will have features that they can, in turn, charge you to use.
Nokia makes (made?) the 6019i for the CDMA carriers, and it is a basic, plain-jane phone with excellent RF, battery life and durability.
Insects have "antennae", phones have "antennas".
Do live vicariously through your daughter and her uber trendy cell phones?
Say I am currently a subscriber with a crap phone; Where can I go to learn about getting an ebay phone to work with my service? What is involved? What do I need to look for? What is a locked phone? Will any of the phones work with Sprint/Verizon/Cingular? Do some phone only work with one? What do I need to do to make the phone work?
Dekker Dreyer
Well, if the new phone supports SIM cards, couldn't you just buy a phone off of Ebay or whatever, and chuck your SIM card in there?
just an analog boy living in a digital age.
> Let me let you in on a secret.
WOW! what a beautiful phrase, almost a haiku.
let me
let you
in on
a secret
I can even hear the music
Texting is very important, in particular to low-end phone users and "emerging markets", because it's inexpensive and simple, and because it's increasingly being used for business functions. On the other hand, if money is tight, I think durability and use of standard technologies matter more than being ultra-thin and shiny.
This phone looks like an overpriced gimmick to me.
"And will it appear in the United States? For that to happen, Reith says, Motorola will have to find a willing service provider or agree to sell its product alongside no-name brands at drugstores."
why cant they just sell an unlocked phone on their website? i already have a sim card; why do i need cingular to sell me another phone. the phone pictured in the article looks like the kind of phone i would want, but i know it will probably never make it to america.
lose != loose
Fact of life it seems. Nokia developed a phone on a chip last year with similar intention to this Motorola initiative. Cell phone companies were not interested and Nokia acknowledged that. The "just a phone" on a chip was destined for emerging markets in the third world where the primary barrier to entry is price.
Cell phone carriers poo poo the "just a phone" concept since those phone don't support sales of extra services. Conversely, full featured phones are often crippled by the manufacturer at the request of the carrier to not allow bypassing the need to purchase extra services to access those additional features. Direct downloading of photos or uploading of ring tones come to mind.
One of the best "phone" phones is the Nokia 6019i. I currently have the Motorola V323 which is also a great "phone" but alas it also has a camera which is essentially junk. Both have great reception and work well at their intended purpose.
Like allot of people, I don't want to (and won't given a choice) pay butt loads of extra money for features I neither need or want and certainly hesitate to pay extra to do things with my phone such as download pictures. I also don't want extra crap piled on in the hope of generating extra revenue in the form of "sucker money" interfering with basic phone function.
A short story aside:
The Moto V323 has a VGA resolution camera and a 5 pin mini b USB port. Alas no cable or software in the box. Rat Shack yielded a cable on short notice (for 20 friggin US greenbacks) and software was found via the web. The pictures? Let me put it this way. Walmart sells a Barbie Cam for $19.95 that takes equivalent digital photos and the Barbie Cam comes with cable and software.
Result? If Motorola or the Cell Carrier included cable and software we would have a camera worth $19.95. Maybe slightly more for the convenience, but since the camera is so crappy as to be unusable for anything other than putting freakazoid faces to phone numbers, one is left to wonder what the point of it all is if anything beyond gadgetitus sold retail for rubes.
I needed the better reception more than a camera but people notice and say "oh you have a camera phone!" My response, "Not really."
Actually I wouldn't mind a decent camera incorporated in the cell phone. I'd rather take pictures than take notes but come on, throw me a bone here. If your going to put a camera in a phone, make it worth the effort.
Buy a pay per use phone. They cost 30-60 dollars at places like walmart, checks cashed places, and dollar stores. And they come with some free time on them. Many of them you can replace the uid card with a different one (one supplied by your provider. There small and have no features.
But most likely for many who want a basic phone it will be too basic for them.
TruePunk | Games
But can it run linux?
My name would be Pi_r_[]ed, but this stupid thing wouldn't allow it. Well, at least now you know.
I'm not sure what their source is, but an article here http://www.fastcursor.com/phones/motorola-motofone -f3.asp gives some info we've been asking about.
-$40 USD price point
-SMS Enabled
There has always been basic phones out there. From Nokia alone: 1100, 1110i, 1101, 1112, 2100, 2310. I have always found the "but I just want to make phone-calls!"-argument to be pretty lame, since the market is full of phones that offer just the basics. Hell, three of those phones I listed have a B&W-screens.
I bought my neo-luddite mother Nokia 1100. Very basic phone that "just works". And she has no problems using it. And it has very long standby (100-400 hours) and talk-times (2.5 - 4.5 hours). It's very sturdy, with rubber-sides so it doesn't slip. So what's the big deal here?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
i am totally buying one of these. i'll be the first kid on my block to have a greppvänlig!!
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Some of my clients have tight security regulations. I recently was sent for an extended engagement at a lab where I wasn't allowed to bring anything with a camera on site. I went out to the verizon store and bought a Motorola V65S for only $20. It does almost nothing.
"Looking for more customers, the company did extensive market research in poor countries." Am I the only one reacting to this? If they need to do [b]extensive market research[/b] to figure out that this is what a lot of people want (not only in africa/asia) they can't be very bright.
has become the overriding concern with me. i'm on my second phone with the 3 little contacts and they've already worn to the point that, right now, i have the charger pulled tight up the back of the phone and held in place with tape. that's the only way to charge it.
from now on, if it doesn't have a proper barrel charger, no dice.
no i have not shot my gun in the air and gone 'Ahh!'
flashlight? fahgettah boutit!
i want a bottle opener on my phone.
We convinced my father-in-law to carry a cell phone about a year ago. He bristled at the idea of ever using any functions other than placing and receiving calls. Voice mail? Forget it. If the person is not sitting at the phone at the time John calls, he doesn't want to leave any message for them anyway. An address book? No way. He's proud of the fact that he has memorized the phone numbers of several dozens of friends, and snorts at the idea of using a machine to list phone numbers alphabetized by names. He actually made me delete all the entries of family members in the address book I had programmed for him the night before. Ringtones? Pictures and graphics? Menus full of functions? Text messaging? We never needed any of those during the Eisenhower administration. Hmmph.
When his new hunting dog puppy chewed up and destroyed John's cell phone, we had to go looking for the absolutely cheapest replacement with the fewest features obtainable, because that's all he would spend any money on.
Yup, this new Motorola would be ideal for John.
http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.jsp?Id=2607 has a (IMHO) better article.
Looks like under $50, and while you may not be able to buy it directly in the US, I've got to think they'll be available on ebay fairly soon. If it's a tri-band GSM, you will likely just be able to slap your SIM card in and go.
Personally, I can't wait to get one (and one for my dad)!
teeker
Since I can get a flip phone with internet and maybe even a camera for free or near free. Unless there's an actual plausible advantage that getting fewer features than those can get for almost nothing already then there's not benefit.
Read the article closely. Half of it is some boring marketspeak about the display. The other half is the business case for why the display makes sense - In INDIA WHERE YOU CAN'T READILY RECHARGE THE PHONE AND WHERE PEOPLE WHO CAN'T READ STILL NEED A MOBILE PHONE.
Of course it's only a matter of time before MITs Media Lab declares a new project for a hand cranked phone that costs $5 to make or something like that, and it's going to jumpstart the whole third world.
I must have dropped my Nokia 3200 about a dozen times. Hardly a scratch on the plastic case, which is only the outer shell and elastic. I can't imagine what dropping out of a shirt pocket on a hard floor would do to all those slim phones with a metal case and large LCD. Unless they're so light now that it doesn't matter.
Of course I'd love a MP3-playing 20 GB Linux based phone, but good voice quality and a couple days of standby come first. I could've gotten a Blackberry almost for free, but no, thanks. Whenever I talk to a colleague who has a Blackberry I have to ask back every couple of seconds. They seem to be great at picking up environmental noise and encoding voice so that it sounds garbled - like other phones 10 years ago.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
India has over a billion people, most of whom do not live where there is land line phone service. This phone is less than $40 retail. Estimates are sales of 100M handsets per year. What's so difficult to understand?
This phone is targeted as developing countries. Here are the features I'd like to see on a similar model for western countries:
1. Same black and white reflective screen technology - but with a real dot matrix display for phonebook, call log, etc.
2. Thumbwheel (mechanical or a touch-sensitive pad like iPod) for speed dialing.
3. Packet mode data + bluetooth to connect a PDA, portable computer, etc to wireless internet.
Otherwise, it should be quite basic: minimal menus and no camera, colors, ringtones, wallpapers or any of the other junk they put in phones these days. Add long battery life, good reception, good voice quality and the same sleek-but-not-fancy design and you have a winner.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
1. Great talk/stand by Time
2 External display if its a flip phone
3. phone book with sim card
4. text messages (with the cool program that figures out what you really want to type)
5. Good reception
If I could have that I would be happy. I don't use games or the web or all the "apps" just the basics please
$DO || ! $DO ; try(); > try: command not found
GSM encourages world-wide compatibility (ahem) by having multiple frequency bands that aren't all supported everywhere. North America and most of Latin America use 1900 MHz and/or 850 MHz. Europe, Asia, and Australia mostly use 900 and 1800. Quad-band phones use all four, and US and EU/Asia have different tri-band combinatations that give you some coverage in most of the world.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I dont think this phone can survive in Indian market. BW handsets are already dirtcheap.
:D
;)
:D
For example, i can get a Reliace LG CDMA handset for around 1800 Rs or around 36 USD. I get Rs 1800 worth of talktime, and incoming calls are free for life. And i dont think that Motorola is going to sell this particular handset for less than 1000 Rs (20 USD).
You simply cannot price a BW handset more than 2500 Rs because the cheapest color handset costs around 3500 Rs.
And for some reasons, Motorola handsets are not popular in India. However, RAZR is one exception, as its been one of the top selling model in India
BW handsets are cheap enough that i can use them as disposable mobiles. Even though i can i can afford a do-it-all pda phone, i still prefer to buy the cheapest handset available in the market.
This way, i dont have to worry about the handset getting scatched etc. And best of all, i can slam the hadset when i am angry. Try doing it, you will feel really good
And, BTW...who got the weird idea of using a bicycle to charge a mobile ? LOL... who will pedal a bicycle for 2 hours to charge a handset ? People at Motorola have a weird sense of humor
You know that $100 phone you bought when you sign up for a new contract? It's really a $300 phone... I don't have a source, but I recall reading somewhere that it takes over a year for the cell company to recoup the cost of the loss-leader phone they gave you.
"Average Revenue Per User" is the cellular industry term that is key here. The wireless industry does everything it can to eek out every single bit of revenue from each user. Text messages, pictures, ringtones, etc. So, I don't think you'll ever see this phone in the states... there is not even a CHANCE of increasing revenue.
MAYBE you could see this phone in the pre-paid market, which typically has simpler phones anyway (and higher airtime revenue).
I recently replaced my ancient Kyocera "candy bar" with the most basic Nokia candy bar model VZW offered. I was deeply disappointed with how much clunkier the interface is. On the Kyocera, as soon as you started pushing numbers it started matching up the possible letter combinations with entries in the phone book. As soon as you get the unique match, press -send- and off you go. Or punch in two or three numbers and scroll down once or twice.
/whine.
Silly me, I thought this was so obviously 'the right way' that *every* phone should behave similarly. But my new Nokia forces you to navigate all the menus in the clunkiest way possible. I guess they're scared of confusing somebody.
Let's compare calling "mom" on each phone:
Kyocera: 6-6-6 -send-
Nokia: -down- 6 *wait for cursor* 6-6-6 *wait* 6 -send-
Absolutely maddening by comparison.
I've yet to see anyone address talk time.
There's a big emerging market for phones for older people. The US baby boomer generation are mostly in our 50s and comfortable with technology, but most of our parents never really got into cellphones, and they're hitting physical limitations that make most of that unnecessary. We got my mother-in-law a phone that had basically two big buttons ("call the operator" and "hang up") and an overpriced per-minute rate for operator-assisted calls, and she could about handle that, but there are a lot more people who can use a bit more phone than that.
Some technical advantages of big simple phones are that they can be cheaper, because they're not trying to fit as much capability into a small space, and they can have much longer battery life because they've got the space to fit a bigger battery. They probably still need polyphonic ring-tones, not because their customers really care, but because the carriers want to sell ring tones, and you can always custom record something like "[ring-ring] MOM! PICK UP YOUR CELL PHONE! [ring-ring]".
This phone sounds like it has a great display, though some people may have better luck seeing brightly backlit displays. Having icons to tell you what you're doing sometimes works, if you've got a limited number of icons - but if you've got too many, you're basically reinventing Chinese ideograms. [cue the standard slashdot "Old People in Korea" meme.] (Actually, my mother used to read Korean and Chinese, but that was a long time ago - at this point she'd rather have big numbers and occasional phrases like "REDIAL")
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
My wishes have been answered! It's JUST a phone. It makes phone calls.
Wait! Dont get excited self! TFA says, "Emerging Markets"... I hope that does not mean, Not for sale anyplace where Spirt, Verizon or AT&T are.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
I don't give a crap what anyone says, my absolute favorite phone that I've owned was my old Motorola Startac with the vfd-like screen. Simple, looked good, effective and had an excellent battery life.
j pg
The one like this: http://themuffin.net/motorola-startac-80100wnbpa.
hehe, I have a no-frills Nokia 1100 which has a LED torch and I can also use it as a bottle-opener. It's got lots of scratches from the bottle caps but it only cost me 30 euro 2 years ago, so what the hell. I also used it as a makeshift hammer a couple of times and it still works perfectly.
872835240
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/23/vodafone_p hone_phobe/
Vodafone have had a couple of no-frills phones available for the past eighteen months.
It is about time!
When I was at Java One, I talked with the marketing guy in the booth. I told him exactly what I wanted (this phone) and he cut me down, and frankly stated that I wasn't representative of any group (they had done the homework) and I was nuts.
Thanks for whomever finally beat these guys with a clue stick. I want one of these!
Hah, you underestimate the ingenuity of American companies ....
This would be perfect for Verizon: they could offer one free with only a 2 year contract and the only feature not included would be the extended battery life.
that it has been released ? :)
I checked their website for a release date - nothing.
I really want to purchase this phone, but will probably forget about it by the time it gets released
Any suggestions ?
Dan
And the model that comes to mind is C139, which is a very simple candybar type GSM mobile phone, that can do little more than voice and SMS, eg. it has a calculator, a simple calendar and a few games. So, it isn't heavy on functionality, but it has a rather large battery and the recharge time is very good.
:-)
I have given one to each of my children and they like it because they can easily write SMS messages and talk with their friends. It doesn't have a camera, MP3 or flip, but in my opinion exactly because of that it is a perfect first-user or simple-user mobile phone.
So, it may not be with a great new design as this new one, but the C139 is small and lightweight (85g) and with good battery life, so for people that prefers that, it seems to be a great phone. A different version C116 also looks interesting for the young with the exact same functionality, but I ended up going for the C139.
I am myself leaning more towards PDA smartphones so to me it is definitely not enough! I still have my crusty old A780, but the N95 really looks interesting as Motorola doesn't seem to come out with a new PDA phone with GPS included. To bad, because the Linux/Qt base of A780 really works well, and perhaps just needs improvement to a newer kernel (over the 2.4.20) and of the utilities that deals with USB and the phonebook, to mention a few
I didn't see any mention of whether or not it has a GPS receiver. Any cell phone sold in the US is required to have a GPS receiver built in so they can track you, right? That could be one reason why this phone won't be sold in the US.
It looks pretty cool to me, in any case.
-Rich
i simply cannot wait to see this phone! i have been waiting for so long for the phone companies to quit farting around. adding unnecessary features is not a way to make a phone better. improving the things essential to a mobile phone (battery life, reception, speaker volume) definately are. i certainly hope that motorola has hit this one on the head with a sexy phone that has an incredible battery life with unparalleled reception. if they're only aiming at the low end market with such a phone they're either missing their market or they've designed a crummy phone.
1. Buy phone that you like
2. Take SIM card out of your current phone and place it in your new phone
3. (Carriers don't) profit!!!
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
It seems smaller and lighter than their other phones. It has no camera. It fits in my jeans pocket conveniently. But you have to order them; of course no "phone store" displays or carries one.
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs@cskk.id.au http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
I know flip phones are in, but the hinge is a weak spot on a lot of them. I've had much better luck with the durability of candy bar phones. This Moto phone is a non-flip.
i had that phone for two great years and i loved it. when the keys stopped working (due to me spilling water on it) i got a crappy samsung flip that cost me over a hundred and died in less than a year. the hinge connection shorted, killing the lcd. i kept using it with no caller id or phone book until finally it started to get feedback when talking. i bought a kyocera POS online and sprint fried it giving it a software update. i was so happy i almost shouted when they comped me a 4900 (which is your phone's color-screen cousin) i don't think i will ever get a flip phone again, unless i have enough cash to replace it in 6 months.
Like this:
"EPD [e-ink] technology is not appropriate for cell phones in any other market."
or this:
"[only] emerging markets [have] a lot of sun."
[EE Times, August 14, 2006]
The article specifically mentions India as one of the target markets, but I don't see how it's really going to take off because from what I can tell, you can't even text message. In a country where people send SMS much more than they call (SMS is cheap, airtime isn't), a phone that lacks that capability is dead in the water already. My brother who lived in India for four years was rather surprised that Americans don't use SMS all that much. On top of that, the people I talked to while I was in India last year were quite quick to point out how their communications technology is superior to that in the US and how most people in India have better phones than the average American has. I just don't see the draw except for elderly people who want phones but are afraid of the technology--the same market the phone would play to in the US. And, while Motorola may not have a significant market penetration in India, that is not to say that India is an emerging cellular market--I saw more people walking around with phones than I see in the US.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
Just buy a 10 year old phone then...
Seriously if you don't like the new phones buy an old one.
This no feature thing is way less important than the not open phone problem.
No seriously..... imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things...
Libertas in infinitum
Niiice idea, niiiice... The only problem I see is that little tiny bit that this is done by motorola. So far the only mobile phones company that has consistently failed to deliver at least ONE GOOD HANDSET. Slow menus, bugs and crashes, idiotic features and unusable functionality. Strangely most popular in the good ol' USA.
Guys, please be so kind, go and get a GOOD phone. Samsung? Sony Ericsson? Nokia? Just whatever. Kill Motorola, please.
Some schools are banning cell-phones for students, because of text-message cheating, and the like. But phones like this should not be a problem.
Not to nit-pick, but in case anyone takes your eBay advice, they need to get a Quad-Band GSM phone, seeing as both national GSM providers (in the US) are now using both 850MHz and 1900MHz for their main (Cingular) and extended (T-Mobile) networks.
I guess you might need to check if the phone can work with the frequencies in your country; I think in the US the standard is 850MHz/1900MHz vs 900MHz/1800MHz in Europe.
Oh, this doesn't apply to CDMA phones, which seem to have the phone number assigned to the phone itself
i don't think anyone has pointed this out yet in this thread.
0 ,,164,00.html
m otofone/
e -f3-handson-sexy-cheap-192107.php
http://www.google.com/search?q=motofone
#1 http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/motofone/
#2 http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details/
#3 http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/25/motorolas-9mm-
#4 http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/motofon
lose != loose
KDDI has been peddling these 'bare bones' Tsu-Ka Phones to Japanese pensioners for over a year now. I think they are a great idea. I've seen so many oldies pull the latest, greatest, top of the line, camera, MP3, GPS, TV phone out of their pocket and then pull out their address book to look up the phone number the old fashioned way.
Wow, a phone that is simply a *phone* and not an MP3 player/PDA/dildo/surrogate lover/toothbrush/kitchen sink/Swiss army knife. Whoda thunk it?
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
The required location accuracy exceeds that which can be provided by towers alone.
GPS is not mentioned by name, but what else are you going to use? That Russian clone?
- to be able to talk and listen with it
- a battery that longs a month
- waterproof
- cheap ( $ 50)
- light
- robust
maybe, some alternate ways to recharge it (if we're talking about rural areas)
I don't want no camera, no calculator, no games, no mp3 player.
What happens to an e-ink display if you drop it into the toilet? Is it robust? My old nokia 6120 TDMA could ressurrect in the next day...
Am I asking for too much?
Unfortunately this isn't the phone you're looking for.
According to TFA it's targetted at rural countries (hence great ideas like "Multi-Lingual voice prompts" and "Bicycle powered charger") and the only way they'll bring it to the west is if they find a way to make more money off it.
They haven't been researching how to give thier current customers phones they'll find more useful, They are researching how to get more money from people who can't afford the current high-tech phones.
Quantum Physics a.k.a. sub-molecular statistics
If you read the very last paragraph in the article, it states that the phone isn't going to be available in the US unless someone will carry it (and it doesn't have a way for Verizon et al to nickel and dime you to death with photos, ringtones etc, so good luck getting them to do it) or it's sold in drugstores alongside no-name brands, and I wouldn't be surprised if Motorola makes up some BS excuse about how it's beneath Moto to sell that way.
So for now, those who want just a simple phone (like my mom) are out of luck. Even text messaging and other bells and whistles go unused on her phone.
On the upside, she got the phone for free with her plan and just doesn't use the features she doesn't want, but she's continually asking me if she gets charged for text messages (not unless it's someone other than T-Mobile who sends them and nobody sends her anything, so I don't see why she worries).
Motorola is much worse than MS at tie-ins and trying to kill the competition. This phone will never come to the US by Motorola. It would be a trend killer. The trend of adding tons of unused features would die a quick death when people like me would much rather have these basic cell phones. My wife would have rather had a basic cell phone, but they gave her a "free" one with tons of un-needed options. I'm sorry, but as an IT guy, I refuse to use a device that wants to charge an arm and a leg for "text messaging," changing and downloading additional ringtones, and all the other ways they try to leech money out of you.
This might be my case. I've never had a phone with a SIM card, so I don't know much about them. I thought that was a mainly European thing.
Dekker Dreyer
Many companies have bans on cameras, cellphone or otherwise in the workplace. It is no surprise to me that Motorola has come out with a no-nonsense phone. This will be a big hit in the corporate world.
for those of you who are all ways complaing about wanting a phone that is just a phone, look no further. check out the port a rotary from sparkfun. you'll be glad you did. with its elegant style and ultimate portabilty. it also has very high quality sound and best of all- all it can do is make and recive calls. heck it dosen't even have a display! check em out here kids! http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cP ath=96 and why has it taken anyone this long to notice these? they have been around for some time, and all this time you have been suffering needlessly because you're lazy.