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Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone tried the user interface of a burner phone?

Recently I tried exchanging numbers with a friend who has a burner phone - a replacement for a lost phone.

Yes, good luck with dialling a number or storing a number in the contacts. Even sending a text is a trial of user experience, an intelligence test akin to solving a Rubik's Cube.

So it is good to see that a 12 year old can work out some of these functions. I completely failed to exchange phone contact numbers with my friend, with ten minutes of trying.

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Excuse me for assuming, but you must be quite young to not know how to send a text on a burner phone. I can still T9 type like I'm still a freshman in high school, possibly as well as I can type on a smart phone.

I'm rather young- and I know how to T9 type- but I got my flipper in middle school.

I honestly quite liked it, not that I ever want to go back now.

T9 works OK, and there are other ways too (such as having to push the button multiple times to specify which letter you meant), but I think Hollerith chording is better.

(Also, I do not have a mobile phone and I think I do not want one.)

> good luck with dialling a number

You literally unlock the phone, type the number and press the call button.

Nokias, especially the 3310 model, had stellar UI for text and voice calls. Contextual menus always spot-on, two actions max for getting anywhere, T9 typing...

I think your definition of a burner phone is different than what the article describes. It's not supposed to have much in the way of navigation/UI. To place a call it should be just unlock it, open it (for flip kind), press the numbers and then press the green button :)

I bought one for my 8 yod, unknown brand "Plum" and works great, battery lasts like a week.

In my case, I got it for emergencies.

> I think your definition of a burner phone is different than what the article describes.

A burner phone is Any phone that you can pay cash for and buy air time on it with prepaid air time cards (also for cash). Therefore No One knows who owns it.

On my flip ohone, right now.

Right button (contacts) > Add Contact (First option).

Send?

Same as before, scroll down 'till you find the contact > Right click > Send V Card.

One thing I love, on the home screen, want to search for 'Rich'? Type 7424 (Rich) and Richard is listed.. Name and contact number. From there I can press the green button to call him or right click for more options.

Incredibly simple!

I believe many are designed to be smuggled in certain orifices. It must affect their functionalities.

Please don't take it badly, and only answer if you want to, but how old are you? What you call "intelligence test akin to solving a Rubik's Cube" is what absolutely everybody was doing before the release of the iPhone (so up to 2007).

Not sure what GP means by a "burner phone", but I can see a pretty wide chasm between classic "dumb phones" (I fondly remember my armored Nokia 5510 with a weapons-grade antenna) and transitionary pseudo-smartphones (like an Alcatel wossitsname that my grandpa used to have) which managed to get the worst of both worlds (touch screen with idiotic mapping and no undo, etc.)

Funny how I 'must be an idiot' for suggesting this, or stupidly aged.

My observation is a genuine one. When was the last time you tried a modern burner phone?

They are not your grandma's Nokia. They will have a brand you have never heard of and the functions will be upgraded to give lame access to WhatsApp or some other internet functionality that was not around before 2007.

The other thing is that you can quickly forget the strange button presses and hacks that went with the original burner phone interface. To take an automotive analogy, sure we hand-started cars once and you can hand-start them now but you don't get the same handle that used to come with them.

I recently tried to dial a number on a modern smart phone. I gave up and just found a landline. Is not making calls on the kind of burner phone in the article much easier? Just type in the numbers on the physical buttons that have the numbers written on them permanently, and then push some kind of "make this call" button (often bigger and central in some way)?

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