And lo on Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:44:15 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull>  
did spake, saying:

>>> ...and THIS is why I'm reluctant to buy a new phone. Who would want to  
>>> pay money for something that runs an M$ OS? :-S
>>  A lot of the problems we had stemmed from the third-party interface  
>> plonked on the top, once I removed that it was quite stable. They would  
>> occasionally refuse to link to the computer unless you restarted the  
>> phone, but I've had the same problem with the NokiaOS.
>>  I'm still impressed that if you made a change in Outlook while the  
>> phone was connected it would automatically sync that item and was quite  
>> happy syncing between multiple unconnected computers; something that  
>> both the Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones still don't do or have problems  
>> with.
>
> Well let me put it this way. My current mobile phone is a little bit  
> worn out now. And it wasn't a very good phone to start with. But on the  
> other hand, it doesn't seem to be *possible* to buy a mobile phone  
> that's just a phone any more. It has to also try to be a camera and a  
> music system and a database and... I just want a phone?

They're out there just not displayed as prominently because they're cheap.

> Also, for some reason flip phones seem to be extremely rare right now.

They were in vogue for a while along with sliding ones, perhaps people got  
fed-up with the flip/slide breaking? Or it was just cheaper not to build  
them that way?

> Personally I dislike being charged money because my phone has  
> accidentally called somebody while it's in my pocket. Some phones allow  
> you to "lock" the keypad,

I've not seen a phone that doesn't allow this.

> but it can still call 999, causing a pretty serious hazard as it might  
> block out a *real* emergency call.

It can still call any emergency number, but the I bet the likelyhood of  
hitting the three correct digits and dial remains small.

> (My current phone was clearly designed by idiots. Or at least, by people  
> who have never attempted to *use* their product! For example, if you  
> write an SMS and select "Options", option #1 is... adjust the screen  
> setting? WTF? Surely you're going to do this, like, ONCE, when you first  
> get the phone, and never change it again. By contrast, the option you'll  
> want 99% of the time is "send" - which is option #4. If you *receive* an  
> SMS, "reply" is option #8 - which doesn't even fit onto the screen  
> without scrolling. At least my old Nokia had a sane menu system...)

Again I like my SE phone menu system. You can navigate through using the  
numbers next to the choices, I can lock it and switch it to silent with  
two key presses likewise get the date, model and my telephone number from  
the Phone Status two clicks away (the number of times I've seen people  
being asked exactly which model of phone they have and being stumped  
because it's not shown anywhere amazes me).

It has its problems - there are two ways of locking and silent and they  
appear in each menu in a different order; the call log is unintuitive if  
you want to know the time someone tried to call you yesterday, and has a  
nasty habit of compressing multiple calls into one entry so it appears  
they've only tried once. Other then those it's fine.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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