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I like the concept but it is still targeting the market that can't afford smart phones.

They need a similar phone that is targeting the market that can afford smart phones but realized it doesn't need most of the features at the expense of battery life.

Like a phone with this feature set plus 3G/4G connectivity with WiFi tethering capability to say your tablet and a beefier battery.

Basically a classic Nokia phone and 3G/4G router to connect all your smart devices to while you're on the move and in need of a internet connection.

The Nokia Asha 210 is close to that, except it just have a 2.5G connectivity. I don't know if 3G is worth it on features phone. Don't you think it won't be powerful enough to take advantage of a 3G connection?

The phone wouldn't be but my tablet that I connect when I need a quick internet connection and a better more full featured experience would be.

I almost never use any of my smart phone's features except tethering.

The phone's screen is too small for comfort I would rather use my nexus 7 which I always have with me anyway however a phone of that size would be too awkward so why not just separate them.

A dumb phone with modem capabilities and great battery life and a smart device for everything else.

The point is not for the phone itself to use 3G/4G, but to enable it when the phone is used as an access point (or a tethered cellular modem) for a more powerful device.

On its own, the phone would use 2G/2.5G.

the market that can afford smart phones but realized it doesn't need most of the features at the expense of battery life

I see what you mean, but that market still has different segments and what you talk about (phone with this feature set plus 3G/4G connectivity with WiFi tethering) is just one of them. I for instance couldn't care less about these features. And I'm pretty sure there's an entire segment which just wants a phone which just calls and texts without bells and whistles and a battery life that makes sense for a portable electronics device. Let's say at least 3 weeks. So yes with this one all I see is somthing which I can use to call and has 29 days of standby so I'm in :P Don't care about the price. Oh, it's ultra-cheap? WIN WIN :]

> I like the concept but it is still targeting the market that can't afford smart phones.

Every market can afford smartphones. 3G, wifi, tethering, dual SIMs (quite important in some areas), etc.

If Nokia can sell it in targeted markets, it will match functionality of similarly priced phones with much larger screens and much extended functionality, but the Nokia brand will bring the premium price tag, and in my opinion cheap reliable Androids will continue to win, the price of reliability being word-of-mouth amongst unknown but become-known brands and models, vs known but insufficiently featureful mainstream branded phones.

> cheap reliable Androids

They exist ? Low cost Android devices are absolutely nasty. They are buggy, extremely prone to viruses/malware, complex with terrible build quality.

There is always a market for simple, focused devices that "just work".

> extremely prone to viruses/malware

What?

I don't know what he meant, but from what I have seen, most cheap Android phones use Android 2.3, and so they aren't good on the security front.

Bought a Nexus 4 for $199 contract-free about two years ago. Seems pretty low cost to me, frequent OS updates, decent battery life, great build quality. The smart phone market honestly continues to mystify me.

They have a few. I've owned the 515 (fell from the fourth story and kept working for a solid year), and I currently own the 208. Both have HSPA or something, 3.5G anyway.

No wifi though, you'll have to either use bluetooth or USB (USB works better).

> I think it's time for me to go back to sending SMSs on the telephone keypad.

Well if your primary use of a "phone" is to make GSM voice calls and send SMSs then what you're looking at is completely overkill. The vast majority of people that buy top end phones do so for things like: pocket sized, always available, excellent quality camera, near desktop-like internet browsing, and then the entire application ecosystem including maps, lifestyle applications, games, etc.

There are going to be tradeoffs to be made depending on what your requirements are, including price and battery life.

The vast majority of people I know are buying top phones for things like: sending SMS, calls and camera.

Only my brother uses it for Internet browsing.

I know of only one guy who uses it for the agenda features (and it's a blackberry).

The top end smartphones have cameras that are at least good enough to replace casual point and shoot cameras. Their excellent quality is worlds apart from the new Nokia phone's camera. While the vast majority of people use smartphones for calls, sms, and the camera, there is huge growth in mobile based purchasing, gaming, and social network usage. There are lots of different things that people do with smartphones, maybe not everyone uses the same app or game, but the flexibility of the smartphone makes it possible.

Top End smartphones might be able to replace a 8-10 year old P&S camera they still have respectively horrible cameras. But it doesn't really matter, no one prints photos any more, and with the amount of filters people stick on each photo it doesn't matter if you are making it with a 240p web cam or a 50MP DSLR it will all look the same.

The best camera is the one you have with you. Sure, my Canon DSLR takes nearly infinitely better pictures than my iPhone, but it's the iPhone that takes most of the pictures because it's the one in my pocket.

You are right, of course, that printing from a phone camera is futile, but printing from a P&S is much the same unless you've purchased something at the top of the line.

I think you would be surprised at how much closer a $200 Canon P&S is to your DSLR than your iPhone both in terms of image quality and precision of operation. If you know how to use one. Example: this was taken with a Canon Powershot A610 that cost me $250 around seven years ago: http://folk.ntnu.no/asmunder/files/images/nudibranch.jpg

Very nice pic from your Canon A610. Fully agree about P&S cameras today. I wouldn't run down the quality of today's top of the line phones, they're very good.

Me and my wife still do print a select number of photos. Whenever we travel we purposely take a couple of shots from her Lumix (a non DSLR but with replaceable lens) for the purpose of printing and putting it up on our "travel" wall. Not sure how it would look like if we used our phones to take those shots.

Facebook reports 78% of US daily users are mobile [1]; Twitter report 75% of monthly active users have used mobile [2]; and Amazon report 60% of customers shopped with a mobile device during the Christmas period [3].

Admittedly these headline figures appear to count users with any mobile activity, even if they have far more activity from other platforms.

I prefer desktop too, but I think it's a mistake to underestimate mobile.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/facebook-mobile-user-count/

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/mobile-twitter-161m-access-...

[3] http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/26/amazon-2014-holiday-sales/

While this seems to be a battle of anecdotes, everyone I know who owns a smartphone uses it as their primary non-work email device, Facebook device, browsing device, LinkedIn device, etc. Many home personal computers no longer get turned on. It isn't a cell "phone" as much as it's simply a portal computing device.

It seems that HN now automatically applies a -1 to my posts. Add this to the cowardly slowban and I'm done with this site: The users have gotten stupider, the administrators are halfwits (I'm talking about you, dang), and its utility is gone.

Do you know any professionals? Everyone I work with uses calendar/agenda features...

Well then they are busy professionals. You almost make it sound like they are professional because they need a calendar :P That surely is not a criteria I'd use to consider one professional.

Well, that is not what I'm implying. If you work full time and aren't using email/calendar invites then I envy you. Many people in the corporate world have meetings with different people/departments/organizations on a frequent basis, even if you're not in a client facing role. Conference calls are also scheduled through calendar invites.

To counter an anecdote with an anecdote, almost everyone I know uses their phone more for Facebook/Twitter/Hangouts/Snapchat/etcetcetc than for SMS (and I can count the actual calls I've received in the last month on... 2 fingers).

Meh.

A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to simplify my life. Cut everything down to an iPad with keyboard, plus my work Blackberry.

It's romantic, but it sucks. I went the other direction: 15" MBP Retina with quad-core + 16GB and an iPhone 6+. Almost $3k in toys, but way more productive. And the Apple stuff has gotten good enough where I leave my chargers at the office. My 6+ was at 3% last night. Put it in airplane mode over night, and it lasted long enough to give me my alarm at 6:50 am, plus a few checks of e-mail in the morning and 15 minutes of hotspot around 8:30.

A really great middle ground is possible between those two extremes! For me personally, a really nice laptop is indispensable, but I really like the idea (from another commenter here) of a much simpler phone with 3g/4g tethering, phone, messaging, and maybe maps.

I've been running a candy bar for about 6 months in conjunction with a smart phone (work and personal sims). I did this as I got tired of having a smartphone on 5% battery when I needed to make/receive an important call. I now forward the smart phone number to the dumb phone so I'm always available on both numbers. This way I'm always available for calls and have removed the low battery stress from my life. The downside is getting texts on the candy bar. Using keypad is a pain so I tend to call people rather than text or give yes/no replies to anyone not on a messaging app like hangouts where I can text via the smartphone.

I can really recommend it. Also on a side note I feel like I'm leaving the world behind when I only take the dumb phone out.

Is leaving the world behind a good or a bad thing?

Depends which part of the world. I don't do it often enough, but leaving the online part of the world behind would hardly be a bad thing. More time for the real world around you.

That's funny, I can remember being able to type much faster using T9 on my nokia 6510 than I can on my Moto G.

Try it again. Maybe you were a whiz but for me I forgot what a treat it was when I went to keyboard.

I should have added that I was faster and didn't even need to watch the keyboard. There was that short period (where phones were acceptable for kids and there were no real smartphones yet) where kids in school were texting blind to each other under their tables (peaking only to read of course).

You said it. I've been disillusioned with all-things-smartphones for years now. I've always had Android, no iOS, though the wife does.

I want a phone just like this. The only thing I want that smartphones brought us is turn by turn navigation. The rest can take a hike. Put Nokia's Snake game on there, the old ways that Nokias worked (such as the ability to turn the phone off, and have it wake itself as an alarm), keep the 10 digit "interface" for ideal texting and 100% lag-free dialing, the 10+ day battery life of no 3G/4G, maybe Opera Mini per this Nokia.. and we have a deal.

To me that is technology perfected. I don't want much more than a phone in my pocket. If technology that works and is pleasing makes me a Luddite, then so be it. But it's time to bring some sensibility and more usability to products. Nokia was that.

If anyone from Nokia/MS reads this, yes, please, the above and make a higher quality build version. A $100 or $150 phone that I described, preferably with old school Nokia quality or iPhone metal frame would be amazing.

Nokia 515 ?

    > I thought about it and almost broke down and bought a
    > 128GB model outright for over $1000

$1.3 a day, assuming you keep it for two years.

I love my phone like a child, and it is in my hands for probably at least 2 hours a day. I am happy to spend cash dollars on that.

You don't have children, do you?

Also, you wear your clothes at least 14 hours a day. That does not imply you need to buy the most expensive brands you can find, just that they need to fit their purpose. You can pay more than $1000 for an iPhone with 128 GB of storage, true. You can also buy an expandable device, add a 128GB (or bigger - up to 1 TB is available) and end up paying half that price (or less).

You do wear clothes everyday, but hopefully not the same ones everyday. If I only had one set of clothes to wear for 2 years you better believe I'll be willing to spend over $1000 for it.

The analogy just doesn't work, over a 2 year period the difference between $500 and $1000 isn't much. If in the US, the cost is usually hidden in the monthly cost. So the visible cost is $200, and even the free phones over same time period isn't much of a difference in price.

On the subject of spending, put money into your bed, you spend a lot of time there, well worth a few thousand.

Ah, but you forgot one of the 'special' aspects of that $1000 device: it comes with a lock to which you don't hold the key. Taking the clothes comparison further, you can only wash these clothes at one specific laundry. The manufacturer decides which clothes you get to wear on which day and which occasion. They also decide on what style of clothes you wear. Should you not like that style, tough luck. When they launch the 'new style', the laundry won't accept your old clothes anymore - good luck walking around in dirty clothes.

Apropos beds: I built mine, about 15 years ago. It cost me all of $30 in wood and sundry.

To summarise, throwing money at a problem is usually not the best solution. Throwing as much money at a problem as someone will take is hardly ever the best solution.

Bed/mattress, I mean the big soft thing not the frame sorry.

You must be terribly bored of all these "Why Not X" posts by now, but... why not the Nokia 105? I have the Nokia 100 and it does the job (texting, calling, playing Snake) just fine.

The 105 has even more standby & talk time per charge, allegedly, and I only charge my 100 once every week/fortnight depending on use.

Worth a look but not much cheaper so if having access to the internet, or having a torch, is important to you it won't be so appealing.

I bought a 105 last year in Thailand and love it. I get about 2 weeks of battery life with moderate use. The 215 actually has too many features for me - I just like the simplicity of talk, text and torch without having to worry about charging, so the 105 wins :)

Nokia 105 here as well. I love how so many people on HN have 'dumbphones'. It's gone through so much more abuse than a smartphone would be capable of taking.

After my HTC Desire started failing me I looked at my options wide and deep. I was inclined to just get "candy bar" device like this one. Fed up with the battery and fragility - tho I almost never carried my Desire in a case (and other stuff you mention).

But then as my phone gave up on me before I found a replacement I started using a "cand bar" phone and found out that I actually like some smartphone features - like a good autocomplete keyboard, the ability to track my post packages, check bus timetable and occasionally to look up something on the internet (I'm a patient man, it doesen't need to render webpages _that_ fast).

And I came to conclusion that I would enjoy a relatively small, well build and long lasting smartphone that doesen't need to run games (and many apps at once) or have GPS/Nav, voice control,... and whatnot features that I don't use (and can't even remove usually). I think that the technology itself is advanced enough for such a device - there're even some cheap Chinese ones that look promising for what I need (for example Xiaomi Redmi 1S or Redmi 2).

I had the same problem. The Desire simply was the perfect phone, age finally got it after over 4 years. I tried a Chinese one, don't go for it. The desire was a small flagship phone, you'll be disappointed at anything with less quality.

I can recommend the Moto G, it too is a flagship phone at a much too low price, they recently introduced a 2nd gen but it's more expensive. You can get the original second hand for around €100, I am certain it won't disappoint.

I'm loving my Moto G, $180 unlocked. It is plenty powerful, but not very expensive, so I'm not paranoid about it getting broken.

I was in the same position as you (upgraded iOS several times on a 4S) and experienced the same issues, but I found a clean install dramatically improved performance, though not to the same snappiness of iOS 6.

I love the feel of the hardware, but for >95% of the phone's life it's been wrapped in a waterproof case, so I don't really benefit from it much.

Thanks for the tip about the clean install.

And I totally hear you about the way the phone feels. Every time I got a new case, I would leave it naked for a few hours, just -[fondling]-touching and admiring the damn thing.

Just something to try - have you tried doing a factory reset on the phone? I ran into the exact same problem both on my phone and a gen 2 iPad Mini after a direct upgrade, which was completely resolved after doing a fresh install.

Yeah, it isn't a thing you should have to do, but if it fixes the problem...

I've never had really good luck with system upgrades on Apple products.

Additionally, visit the Genius Bar at the apple store. They'll help you fix the issue.

Something like this could be a good upgrade for myself when my current phone breaks down.

I've been using an Xcover 271 for years. It gives me a couple of weeks of battery and, if I really need to, I can still use a simple web browser to look up timetables etc. (but it's enough of a burden that I won't use it for fun) and there's Google Maps preinstalled (also, a big slow for just browsing around but it has been a life-saver several times!)

But the Xcover is somewhat slow and because it has this 'ruggedised' brand image it costs more than it should. A very basic entry-level phone with technology that's five years newer but still costs nearly nothing is probably a good sweetspot. If it breaks the option of buying a replacement won't be considered any longer than one second.

Give it a try :)

I'm a huge Nokia fan for two main reasons: The phones are durable and they are so cheap that they're practically disposable.

I can't speak for this phone (the 215), but you can buy a Lumia 520 for ~$50 dollars and a 635 for ~$75. My son is 16 months old and constantly smashes the phone into the floor and I'm perfectly ok with that.

For the price you'd drop on an iPhone 6+, you could probably buy 10 Lumia 520s and break them on purpose at your leisure and it would still be cheaper. People will make fun of you for Windows Phone, but it does have Bluetooth, web browsing, really good contact integration, and good email integration. For me personally, using mobile websites is good enough that I don't care if there are apps or not.

if this phone takes a 32gb sd card like my nokia asha, it makes a mockery of the affordability of "smart phones" with "huge storage". and also battery life. and reading the article, it does, happy days.

was worried microsoft would do away with this line!

It does (see the specs).

But it has only 8MB RAM (that's MB, not GB).

Not to sound posh, but I miss the Maps feature.

I have a basic phone and the only reason I hold to my iPad at all times is the fear of being given an appointment at a place I can't find.

i think nokia maps is supposed to be pretty good for what it is.

Keep in mind, though, that Nokia still exists outside Microsoft and they still own the mapping business ("Here", as it's called now). So it's not a given that Microsoft's 'Nokia' phones will actually use Nokia maps.

The 208 has 64MB, 3.5G and costs about 50-60 euros.

Why not buy a cheap android phone, a cheap case ,and a wifi, and maybe an extra battery to put in the car ? it will solve all your problems at a price far cheaper than the iphone , and you'll still get to retain the functionality ?

The inexpensive feature phones have much better battery life, less expensive than the cheapest smartphone, and are probably more rugged/durable. They do get the job done as a phone and a few other things. If you don't have much use for a smartphone, then this is perfect. I'm sure there are still a relatively large subset of people who would rather have a feature phone than a smartphone.

I bought LG G3 few days ago after my iPhone 4S lock button finally broke. I thought about iPhone 6 plus for it's larger battery. Unlocked GSM version is over $900 on Amazon. LG G3 unlock GSM is around $450... I hate 2-year contract thingy, using this $450 + $50 accessories + $1,200 Straight Talk 2 year no contract = $1,700 In comparison to Verizon 2-year contract $400 iPhone 6 plus + $1,920 2-year = $2,320 with god knows hidden fees and receipt of my soul... I think I made the right decision...

Straight Talk, is that T-Mobile?

It's TracFone/Walmart, on whichever big 4 US network:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TracFone_Wireless#Straight_Talk

I completely agree about not being able to justify spending $700+ on a phone, but there are reasonably priced Android smartphones that give you a really good bang for your buck. I bought both my parents a MotoG - it's an LTE smartphone for ~ $200 - and they're really happy with it. My next phone is probably going to be that or the HTC One Mini (~$350).

I also got fed up with my iPhone 5 and the crazy cell phone bills I had and switched to a Moto G (2nd gen) on a cheapo prepaid GSM plan. I couldn't be happier and am ecstatic to pay less than $30/month for phone service and own the phone outright. The G is easily 80% of the iPhone functionality for about 20% the cost. It runs the latest Android OS really well and has good specs. Only downside is the camera is nowhere near as good as the iPhone, but it's not completely terrible.

your 4s wireless just broke.. it was not anything to do with upgrading the os. You had a good phone for it to last that long. - also bet you would not really like this phone.. it is slow and for people who cannot get a better faster phone. Its like saying you would really be ok with an outhouse because you dont mind the walk.

OK, i'll take the bait. To use the outhouse analogy, i actually prefer the outhouse, because i get a bit of fresh air and exercise on the way, and there aren't kids and flatmates bothering me through the door while i'm having a crap, and.. no, the analogy is broken.

I could perhaps afford an iPhone what-have-you (even though i am a poor PhD student -- maybe you have a point), but i genuinely like the fact that my phone lasts really long between charges and that i am not even tempted to have FaceApp or TwitBook, etc.

If my life was arranged a little differently (read: more stability) i wouldn't even have a mobile at all, but for the moment i can't rely on having only a home phone.