Where In the US Can You Get Just a Cell Phone?

arakon writes "I am looking around for a cell phone for my technically challenged mother and all she wants is just a phone, and yet there seem to be no carriers in the US that carry a plain cell phone with good reception and battery life. All of them bundle cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, and a kitchen sink with a battery life of 2 hours, all for the low price of $350 or more... Having looked around, the Motorola F3 is exactly what she wants but it doesn't seem to be available in the US. If we order it online will it work on US carriers? Are there any comparable products out there with a similar feature set and price range available for US networks?"

Comments

Get thee to 7-11 FFS

[mashade]

Forget eBay, the submitter just wants to be told what to do...

Even 7-11 and WalMart have pre-paid bare-bones cell phones these days! Did this really have to be asked? I know there's a big movement on ./ for simple, long lasting phones (and I'm sympathetic to the idea myself) but honestly, it isn't hard to find a simple cheap phone.

[/rant]

Jitterbug is great if that's what you want

[billstewart]

My mom has limited vision, and while she has good hand dexterity, she couldn't read the little menus on her previous cell phone to know which button to push. We got her a Jitterbug last year, and she's been using it a lot. The screen's pretty big and bright, and instead of using the space to display lots of tiny menus for lots of useless features, it's big numbers with minimal menus (like "Bob - Dial?".) Sometimes you need to scroll through a few more choices than other phones, but they're all Yes/No, and you can voicedial or just call the operator to get connected if you don't want to dial. It's not the *same* kind of simplicity as the iPhone (:-), but it's really good.

It's designed for older people with varying limitations - one model has number-pad buttons and yes/no, while the other just has three fat buttons for operator/towtruck/911. They're both a bit clunky, because they're designed for people who care more about making it easy to push the big buttons than about having the phone be really small. I don't know how the battery life is - my mom hasn't had problems with it, so I suspect standby time is pretty good, but she doesn't talk on the phone much. One advantage of a larger phone is that there's room for a larger battery.

It might or might not be the right phone for your mom - does she want a phone that's small, or is clunky ok? Does she want GSM so she can use it anywhere in the world, or is having one US-only carrier ok? Does she want a "simple" phone because it's harder to use fancier phones, or does she really just want a *cheap* phone that works ok and can ignore menu items she doesn't use? There are lots of choices for cheap - getting a used unlocked GSM phone may be a good choice, or getting whatever rate plan is the best price for the amount of calling she'll do and includes a zero-price phone.