Buying a phone for mum

A few days ago, I had a note from Steve asking what sort of phone people reckon he should buy his mum for Christmas.

I’ve had quite a few mails from people (Kevin, Gunnar, Kerry) asking the same thing recently so I thought I’d re-post.

In particular, Kevin emailed to ask if anyone has tried out the Vodafone Simply range of handsets and asks

Does anyone know if they are any good, or are they just marketing rubbish?

I’ve had a look at one of the Simply devices and, well, it does look pretty neat for a ‘parental unit’ to use. Big keys, big screen, simple functions.

It’s only when you come to look for a handset for a parent that you realise just how out-of-control the mobile industry’s handsets have generally become. When you look at the basic requirements for a handset — phone book, phoning someone, texting someone, possibly taking a picture — they are hidden amongst the hundreds of other functions and, on-second-glance, some of the world’s shittest user interfaces possible.

The educational leap from knowing how to use a landline phone to learning how to use, say, the latest Samsung, or the rather cool LG phone which keeps switching itself off when you use it*, you can begin to understand how daunting it is to

Only yesterday I was sat in the Waldorf Astoria Hilton on Aldwych with my friend Tom. We were having a post-Chez Gerard beer (or coke, in my case) and were sat in the lobby bar area on some huge comfy chairs. To my right I saw a gaggle of four 50 year old women sat enjoying some coffees. They were dressed up, looked to me like they were perhaps down in London for Christmas shopping. One of them reached into their handbag and pulled out a flip phone — looked like a Samsung. She then proceeded to try and find a phone number of a friend to send a text message to. I overheard this part. Five minutes on, she was still pressing buttons and giving strange looks to the handset’s screen. Two of her comrades had also got their (flip) phones out and were trying to help her. They were under the misguided impression that if they could work out how to do it on their phones (they each had different brands) then they could tell her how to do it. Oh dear.

After 15 minutes worth of ‘oooh my, this new technology is beyond me’ kind of comments, they all put their phones away and resolved to contact the person another time.

Deary me.

So, with this in mind, any recommendations for Steve’s mum, Kevin’s mum, Gunnar’s mum and Kerry’s dad?

* That’s my dig at the LG touch-screen handset 😉