Basic Nokia phones that don't do much more than calls and SMS and that are very simple to operate and very sturdy, can be found (new) for around EUR 20.

To be honest, this doesn't seem to be a phone for children or the elderly (neither of which have some sort of cognitive short circuit that keeps them from grasping a simple Nokia while allowing them to embrace the idioms of this particular phone) -- but rather a phone for hipsters who need to very loudly announce that they don't have an iPhone.

"John's Phone: It's not an iPhone or anything. You've probably never heard of it."

My grandmother couldn't figure out how to work the new radio we got her - which just had two giant large dials. We got her a dead-simple cell phone and it was never used.

One thing she does know how to do is use the 12 button landline phone thats mounted on her wall, and this looks exactly like that and works nearly exactly like that. This would be perfect for her.

Except for the two small switches on the side, having to charge it, and having to push pick-up and hang-up instead of lifting and replacing the receiver.

Maybe we could get her to drop it in her keychain bowl when she comes home, and outfit it with one of the charging pads.

(disclaimer: I'm culturally close enough to the people here to get to say that ;) )

The thing is a rock.

http://www.reghardware.com/2010/12/03/ten_essential_cheap_vo...

It was £0.99 when I bought it, and has been as low as £0.01 recently - with the only catch being that you have to buy £10 worth of prepaid airtime when you buy the phone. Ideal for a couple of weeks' travel in a foreign country. (It's SIM-unlocked too.)

http://azerty.nl/producten/product_detail/1058/302405/nokia-...

and here a samsung:

http://www.pixmania.nl/nl/nl/3598464/art/samsung/e1080.html?...

for a little less

I only have to charge it every week or so, and it has lasted longer than any other phone I have had.

Not for everyone. For example, I send one text message every two or three months. I could easily live without the ability to send or receive texts.

The thing I don’t like about this phone is the silly pen-and-paper address book. Are there any phones out there that just make phone calls, and nothing else?

Email and Skype on my phone, however, I could not do without.

Strikes me to have two major markets: (1) people who only want to talk to people via phones (e.g. some of the elderly) and (2) as a fashionable item. The gold one would be a head-turner and topic of conversation.

Some people want to get rid of SMS from their way of life (or never adopted it in the first place), and hark back for simpler times. This phone appeals to that.

When it comes to phones I go through alternating phases of high-tech and as simple as it gets, mostly because I get frustrated at how bad high tech phones usually work as phones (they're great little computers, but I mostly use my phone to call).

SMS is no longer optional, even if you want to get rid of it, typically service messages are only sent using SMS, not voice and people will simply assume that even if you didn't respond that you still read their SMS message saying they'll be an hour late.

It's like with businesses and FAX, you may never send one but people pretty much used to assume that you were at least capable of receiving them.

False! Perhaps for your way of life, but there's the age-old 'you != everyone'. Once your friends know you don't text, they stop texting you. They may think you're a Luddite, but that's another issue.

Even though you (and me for that matter) may want SMS on phones, I don't think it was a poor design choice to skip SMS on this phone.

I really really tried, but apparently your friends respect you better than mine do me :)

I don't mind being known as a Luddite ;)

And they'll be wrong.

And an hour late.

I would argue that politeness requires the sender to contact the receiver in a manner of the receiver's choosing, not the sender's, while the receiver should not go to extremes to avoid the sender.

Lack of SMS is the normal, passive state and since there is no legal or social requirement to have it, I wouldn't consider not having it impolite at all.

Odd, perhaps, if one takes the receiver's demographic into account, but not impolite.

Maybe it could have a scanner, too, so that you could write SMS on paper and feed it to the phone.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Mobile-Phone-with-a-Built...

Wasn't there a James Bond movie where a strip of paper came out of the side of a wristwatch?

The back of each John’s Phone features a flap with an address book behind it. The left of the flap contains an opening with a small pen: these two unique accessories allow you to update your address file at any time, even when your phone is switched off.

http://www.johnsphones.com/about/specifications/item49

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Nokia_1100__Review_5583589

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100

If it had SMS capability and a small display how would this John's phone be better than for example Nokia 1100?

The nokia wont make other pitchfork readers jealous down at the coffeeshop.

It does have an excuse for being so bad -- it's designed to be used by people who cannot read.

However I found something just about as cheap from NewEgg, this one has a colour display:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875209...

Maybe you're more careful than I am, but when I used PDAs I ended up buying several replacement styluses because I kept dropping them in weird spots and losing them in spite of being careful not to.

If it's not attached to the device permanently it tends to get lost over time.

I really think that a paper phonebook is cute but impractical, and this phone strikes me as aimed at practical people, not people looking for 'hello kitty' like cute little phonebooks.

Also, my handwriting is atrocious :)

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I have at least 5 spare styluses somewhere that I bought with various devices because I was afraid I'd lose the original ones, yet never did once in 10+ years of use.

I'm sure there are some pretty switched on grand parents out there, but I don't fancy the idea of sending my grandmother an SMS. I'd need to call her and no doubt visit her to explain the whole SMS thing.

I have a friend with a parent who is getting on in years, she described a device very similar to this "If only something like this existed" - I've just sent her the link, I imagine a purchase will follow soon after.

(in 2010, I received and sent 6 txt messages, 3 people texting me, and 3 responses from me telling them to email me instead)

Actually, I think those are called tracfones, but they have a stigma of being used by only elderly people. Dang it.

According to the specs it's just callerid / outgoing call

http://www.johnsphones.com/about/specifications/item49