Wanting a Cell Phone that Just Makes Calls
By Dan Wassink - Posted on June 24th, 2007
Tagged: Hardware
So my buddy Dave has expressed to me numerous times how he wants a cell phone that just makes calls. His reasons are that he doesn't use the other features that cell phones have and if he found a cell phone that just made calls, and did it well, he would be happy. Understandably so. The cell phones you can purchase now are horrible for other functions. I have a Motorrola Razr from T-Mobile that does not include physical addresses in with the contact information. My wife has a Razr as well from Verizon with the same problem. I call it a problem in that any phone designed today should be able to handle addresses... unless it is just a phone, which these are not.
So what happens is people, such as Dave, want a cell phone that just makes calls, but I disagree with his justification. The user experience for cell phones is horrible, so horrible that you don't want to deal with anything else... all you want to do is make calls, screw the rest.
Imagine going into the Dentist and putting the next appointment in your phone instead of on a card to be lost later. Imagine going to get your haircut and setting up the next appointment on your phone instead of putting it on a card to be lost later. This would be awesome, but on today's phones this capability is so horrific, it scares people away from the very idea of doing it. Just give me a cell phone that makes calls!
Back to Dave. People such as Dave want to do more. He just got a new Nokia and he is very proud of it. He tells me of the features such as a 1.3 megapixel camera.
Now I wait for the day when he tells me that he wants a phone that just makes calls. Why? He hasn't tried to get the pictures off of it yet. LOL
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OK, so I can speak with some authority on this subject as I have tried just about every "smart" phone that's ever run through the Sprint/Nextel gambit, and am now running a T-mobile Dash. I have run both Palm and Windows (sorry boys, Windows wins hands down). We have a Mac geek in the office that has an iphone, and I have to say after messing with it, it rocks as a pda/computer, I don't know about it's actual phone capabilities, as I didn't try to call China when I had it in my hands.
First things first, when I give a salesman one of these new "smart" phones, which is hilarious using the words salesman and smart in the same sentence, I tell them it is a computer first, a phone second. Unless they are travelling internationally, I give them either a Windows Treo or a Motorola Q. I am starting to lean towards the Q because of it's smaller footprint, the Treo is a bear to carry around, it's just not convenient at all, although very impressive when whipped out in a bar to "check your calendar". The Q doesn't have a touch screen, which I see as an advantage, because it seems that those stylus things are always getting lost. The Windows part rocks, because it uses Active Sync, talks directly to our Exchange server, and gets email, calendar, task, and contacts. It's a direct push (or you can schedule times for it to sync) and my non-techie people don't even know it's working or how, it just does. The biggest drawback, is no matter how many times I tell them not to sync to their PCs a couple of them inevitably try it, then it messes up their wireless sync, I tell them it's a feature as I'm resetting up their phone.
T-mobile, can't say enough good things about their phone, their service, and in particular my service reps. They are out of GR and they ROCK! I need a new phone, they drive it out to me. It probably helps that I've gone from 5 phones to 30 in the last two months given our recent merger with a German company. The phone works seemlessly here and abroad and is actually a good phone as well as a PDA. Its footprint is small enough I can put it in my jeans pocket (well some of my jeans) and it fits really nice in a business man's coat or shirt pocket, right next to their pocket protector and protractor. The sales guys have taken me golfing and given me free shit - what's not to like? But seriously, I drove to Florida over Spring Break with this phone and had very few issues with coverage. T-mobile sometimes gets a bad rap for coverage but it's been great for me and most of the people I have deployed them to.
Alright, phone vs. PDA. I'm with Dan, if I don't put an appointment or something in my phone, I will forget or lose the card. My phone is so easy to use that putting in appointments and stuff is a breeze. And then, maybe best of all, it's on my work Outlook calendar with reminders and everything, it's like magic. If it wasn't for my phone, I'd be lost (oh wait, it still doesn't cure the fact that I'm a blonde). Anyway, there's my two cents...
Yes, Dave, I'll grow my hair out.
I agree that I say I want a phone that is a phone first.. not a camera/pda that also calls... I want the best damn phone, if it has more features great but it better be a great phone first, I hate having to walk out on my deck to answer or make a phone call. I have Vonage at home only because my cell phone worked like ass for years, now that I got the Nokia Dan mentioned the service seems night and day better than my last 4 or 5 Motorola phones I have owned, as far as getting pictures off the phone its cake via bluetooth, my last motorola was easy too using the USB cable. I bought (or got for free) the Nokia 6126 using Cingular service, we will see how Dan likes Cingular service..lol.. rumor has it that there is going to be a "Special" service plan for the iPhone (if the phone ever really comes out) somehow in normal Apple fasion it will be the coolest thing in the world but only work in two citys or something (A play on the old joke about Microsoft and Apple building cars).
I do love my new Nokia, take a look at it http://www.nokiausa.com/A4409112