> I actually liked the size of the ones about 3 "generations" ago, that
> is slightly larger than a pack of 100s cigarettes. They were easy to
> hold on to, the keys were relatively large and had ample space between
> and I could read the display without my glasses. Is anything like
> that available in the GSM world today?
Probably not, but one of the nice things about GSM is that every
GSM900 phone ever made is still compatible with current networks.
Just find one on ebay, pop in a SIM and go.
Here in the US I still like my Nokia 6340i with fairly large text and
buttons.
R's,
John
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I took John's suggestion and it worked
out reasonable well. Cingular Wireless really pressured me to go with
GSM when my last contract ran out, so I did, and the phone which came
with the new contract for free was a Nokia 6010. Trouble is, I thought
and still think it is a flimsy phone, confusing to use, with tiny
little buttons. _None_ of my attachments (car charger, headphone, or
cell socket device) were compatible. I had to start over from scratch.
But on E-Bay, I found the very same phone John mentioned, a Nokia
6340i which was unlocked and quite cheap. My attachments mostly worked
okay with that except for my cell socket (which still distributes
calls to other wired phones but will _not_ be charged through the cell
socket. I had some trouble with the 6340i, which, when Cingular
explained it mostly went away. The problem was every day or three, the
6340i would lose track of its registration data and refuse to accept
or admit any calls. Cingular explained it this way: You still have
your old phone around? Yes I do; I leave it in a charger and always
turned on. Cingular asked, when the old phone was taken out of service
did you 'merely' get the number swapped over to the new phone, or did
the agent also 'reprogram' the old phone with ten zeros as the number?
No programming done, just had the ESN deactivated in the old phone and
the new ESN turned on (along with the SIM card of course). Well said
the rep, there is a problem right there.
The tower sees the old, now invalidated ESN in the old phone, but the
_phone number_ is getting broadcast both from the old phone (now
unused) and the _new_ phone. The tower gets a little confused by
that, seeing the number out there twice but only one good ESN (and SIM
card). Now and again, the tower decides to try and respond to the old
phone, when that happens the new phone gets left out. So she urged me,
"if you are going to leave the old phone around 'where the tower can
see it' at least program its number to ten zeros where the tower won't
be continually attempting to hook up with the new phones number. I
will just leave the old phone turned off and not use it at all and see
if that helps the new GAIT phone Nokia 6340-i keep its place. The lady
said to me also, "even if you prefer to have your active phone always
turned on and available 24/7, you are still going to have to cycle
the power on it at least once every or two. I guess that makes sense. PAT]
John Levine (johnl@iecc.com)