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Comment by some1else | Hacker News Reader

If you want simple SMS, albeit with a retarded UI, check out Motorola F3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_FONE_F3

That is a fricking awesome phone. Dirt cheap, indestructible, and a battery that lasts for 2 weeks between charges. Unfortunately, it has the worst UI ever, and is completely unsuitable for Grandma duty.

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

This is the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline "minimalist phone". The wikipedia page confirms it's not available from Motorola in the US. I'm curious if anyone has had luck using an unlocked one?

They can be eBayed for very reasonable prices. They do function fine with US GSM voice networks. Data is out, obviously.

They were available from TigerDirect. I used to own one, and it was pretty good. I quickly got annoyed with the screen though, so when I had the money I purchased a Nokia phone.

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...

Isn't this phone pretty terrible for SMS, since it basically uses a calculator style display?

You can read about 8 characters at a time, but since most SMS's are pretty short if you have good fingers and get used to the buttons it's not as bad as you might think (kind of like a pager). I know a guy that uses this phone as his primary. For composing, there's no T9, btw.

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