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Comment by Corrado | Hacker News Reader

The AARP should be sponsoring this, seriously. My parents would love to own this phone, or rather I would love for my parents to own this phone. They don't want or need a data plan. They don't want to play games or get stock reports. They just want an easy to use phone with big numbers and screen that they can see.

Currently, they are using cheap, plastic phones with tiny little screens and complex OSes. They aren't durable, have poor battery life and have an appalling UI. I wanted them to upgrade to an iPhone just because its easier to use than the no-name phone they are using now. However, the iPhone has way too much capability and would more than likely confuse them.

If this Nokia "dumbphone" can deliver a sturdy phone with a simple, streamlined UI I would get my parents one in a heartbeat. Pair it with a cheap phone only plan from T-Mobile or AT&T and my Christmas shopping is done this year. :)

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I used to think like that too. But then one day I saw an older person who was really happy with the Note II. I think sometimes we over generalize, with good intentions, and make wrong assumptions about what the older folks want.

I now think that they actually do like being connected, but they just need a bigger screen to work with. Which is why the Note II is a good option.

I'm curious about this. Is it just because the text and buttons are bigger on the Note II? Or is it because their granddaughter/grandson only responds on Facebook, so an over-sized touch device is the only way to stay in touch with them?

Yes and it's much of the same reason we like smartphones. Videos, music, and pictures! And the big screen because of poor vision and clumsy fingers. It's hard to click and browse stuff with a tiny screen.

As an older person on this forum I can confirm the Note II really helps. The eyes start to go first..

Smartphones are often misunderstood. Their most important role and primary use-case are still communications.

I like my smartphone not because I can play Angry Birds on it, but because I've got my email, Facebook's messenger, WhatsApp messenger and Google Hangouts always connected.

So if you see elderly people that don't like smartphones, that's because those people don't use email, Facebook, Google Hangouts, Skype, WhatsApp and so on. But then again, there are elderly people that do.

We like to embrace new technologies just because. The elderly on the other hand value their time and tend to be very conservative, but give them a valuable use case, like video communications with their children that have left the country and you'll see them with smartphones.

On the other hand there is something to be said about the quality of these smartphones to function as phones. For example I remember fondly of how I didn't need to look at my phone, just for dialing a number, a function that's so important while driving. Yes, we've got voice recognition now, but it's so shitty.

My father uses a phone book for his phone. It's basically taped to the back of the phone. When he needs to call my mother, he mutters "now what's Barbara's number again?" Then flips the phone over, locates the number he wrote on a sticky pad taped to the back, then laboriously types in the first few numbers, flips over the phone, then continues to type in more numbers in the same way until he's entered the full phone number.

First time it happened was in a shopping mall in front of McDonalds. A whole bunch of schoolgirls stopped talking to watch the performance. Super embarrassing!

See if Doro phones are available in your country. They're just that: simple phones for seniors. http://www.doro.com

Have you seen the Just5?

http://www.just5.com/

They're not that very well built. My retired anti-tech, luddite, menu-fearing dad had plenty of trouble using the older, more squarish model.

Woah, the brick [1] is seriously cool (no irony), I would love to try one of those out.

[1] http://www.just5.eu/brickred.php

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