Just bought one of these…

I liked it…until I realised I have no way of seeing who’s calling. Or do SMS. That has become so important (in work life anyway) that I couldn’t really see myself without it. Maybe.

Also, can you save even 10 numbers?

And not having a screen, I guess there’s no way to do anything like send/receive SMS,set call diverts, etc.

…or have I missed the point entirely?

Unless no-one *ever* sent you SMS, you’d have to keep swapping your SIM over to read/reply to messages.

Seems to me to be a gadget for the achingly hip (as a second phone. Of course they’ll have their i4 for making calls when the Style Police aren’t looking.)

There’s a display for caller ID at the top… But no SMS. I quite like the simplicity!

There’s a display for caller ID at the top… But no SMS. I quite like the simplicity!

This isn’t a phone for everyone. It’s more a phone for people who want the features of a basic landline, but mobile.

Saying that, I’d also happily buy one (almost). Why? Focus. I find that, with a smartphone, I’m able to do almost everything, anywhere. But that’s also the downside. I play with my phone (“I’ll just check Facebook quickly” – 20 minutes goes by) when I should be focussed on other, more important things, or not focussed at all, just enjoying the moment.

So John’s Phone follows the Do One Thing Well mantra. Simple functions with a huge battery life, for those times when you don’t want all the distractions of a smartphone.

What’s stopping me from buying one of these? Lack of SMS reception. I don’t even need to send an SMS with this phone, but I do need to be able to receive. Why? It’s the expectation of availability. You have a mobile number, people expect to be able to text you. So this would be an ideal second phone for me if either the small display was adapted to display a text message, or there was some web-based system (hello, carriers?) to manage or set an auto-reply (“The phone I’m using right now can’t receive texts, please call me instead).

I’m with Matt – there’s (theoretically) no reason the display on the top couldn’t be used for showing/composing an SMS. In fact for those of us elderly folk who remember what it was like to carry a one-line pager, it would be a teary throwback to the halcyon days of Def Leppard (before they turned crap), Not The 9 O’clock News and Ford Laser Ghias being flash.

I imagine it’s queued at the SMSC until validity expires, or just vanishes into the ether…