That day was circa 2000 and the phone was the Nokia 5150 (didn't have e-ink, but the display was fine).

I had one - was a good phone. I'm glad times have moved on though.

I got a low-battery warning this morning, and realized that I hadn't charged it since last Sunday (a week ago). Plugged it in for an hour, and the battery was full again.

Ok so really I want a pure email and/or phone call device. I doubt anything of the sort will be available in the near future so I just have to make my own. We'll see how that works out.

I would really love it though if they made an open (in the sense of iOS/Android at least) operating system for such phones (yes, monochrome and with CPUs in single digit MHz probably) It would allow for third-party applications (or, at a pinch, I could write one myself) that no phone or watch manufacturer ever makes right. Like UI customization for texts or alarm clock that makes sense for polyphasic sleep. But this, I'm afraid is a thing that will never be made: all innovation seems to be in the segment of touch-screen slate phones nowadays.

Just doesn't make much sense. Most input you are going to do is textual, ie. names and sms messages. Thus keypad optimized for that purpose would be more reasonable. Full QWERTY is probably impractical due desired small form factor, but there could be some good compromised solution. Maybe something like in E55?

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/E55/nokia-e55-and...

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/26/2976703/mit-high-low-tech-...

So, maybe take on a project to create the phone you want.

EDIT: I see you beat me to the punch.