I just showed two phones (Moto V180/Nokia 3595) that I thought were
reasonably-simple, straightforward instruments to a family member as candiates
for an "emergency" phone.

To make a long story short, they went ballistic on me.

Seemed unreasonable until I looked at it from their perspective:
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1) "I carry this damn thing around in my pocket/purse/whatever all year
religiously and then, when I actually need it, it doesn't work."
("Well, you never charged it." doesn't help matters any....trust me).

2) "The keypad is way too small"
(You probably have tb over 50 to understand this one...) "and the keys are
weird." (Nokia probably has a reason...but what?)

3) "This thing is ridiculously complicated. All I want to do is open it up,
turn it on, and dial a number."
(i.e. heaven forbid they should hit the wrong key and wind up in IM with no way
out...)
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My thoughts:

1) Alternative battery pack. Something with a shelf life - like alkalyne AA's
or AAA's.

2) Biggest keys possible and beeeeg numbers on the screen. I saw an older
Samsung that looked pretty good screenwise. Those numbers had to be at least a
half-inch high.

3) Some way to hide options from the casual user. The only things that happen
would be turn on, dial, hang up, and turn off. Everything else is unavailable
unless some special key combination is pressed and held - sort of like the
iPod's reboot feature.

4) They've done this for land line sets for old people....huge keys, limited
options, and so-forth.


Anybody know of anything?
GSM, 1900mhz.
--
PeteCresswell



See More: GSM Phone For The Technophobe?