I suspect Android has made it easier to make the low end devices, you don’t have to reinvent the software wheel. I’ve handled a friend’s Blu and it seems fine to me. Yeah, the camera sucks even compared to the Nokia 520, but I simply am not going to buy a freakin $600 phone. It’s… a…phone! Not personal, philosophical or fashion statement. I also drive a beat up 2001 Caravan.
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exactly.
I was on a cheap plan in the US (Metro PCS $40 unlimited talk/text.) It was a good deal, but I almost never used the phone. it might be two or three calls in a month sometimes. I texted fairly often but then my work changed and I quit socializing as much, it was just a bill I didn’t need anymore.
the candybar nokia phone I used was awesome (I got it for $12 on ebay) but it was hardwired for that carrier, who don’t use SIM, unfortunately.
You can get a Razr off ebay for about $30. Best plain ole phone I ever owned. LG and Samsung still make modern flip phones.
The Xiaomi and OnePlus phones are also Android, and Blu makes a range of phones. The Blu Advance is a basic model with a dual core Cortex A7 processor, a TN 480x800 screen, and 512 MB of RAM. In China the Xiaomi Redmi 2 sells for $100 and has 720x1280 IPS display, 2GB RAM, 4G LTE, and a quadcore Snapdragon 410.
A moto G or imported Redmi might cost double the price of the Blu Advance, but both are probably worth it.
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Thinking on things, isn’t there a severe bullying angle there?
If a wealthier person got hold of a poor person’s number, they could effectively take their phone offline by burning up their credit with sent messages…
Takes a stupid policy into the actively evil area…
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I am thinking of going that direction. I use Virgin Mobile, currently with a Galaxy S3 smartphone, but other than the occasional e-mail and a calendar app, I’ve avoided the “psychic vampire” so far. My main issues are size-in-my-pocket and battery life (it lasts a day, maybe 1.75 tops).
I ordered, and have not set up yet, an Alcatel One Touch clamshell phone for about $20. I chose this phone for a few reasons:
- Obviously, I had to choose a phone that was offered on the VM network (might be ways around this but I don’t know them)
- Clamshell because it’s going in my pocket so the main display is protected when it’s closed
- This phone, particularly, offered software I could add to my Windows machine to synch my contacts to the phone. This is a very important item, to me. My previous clamshell phones required me to re-enter the contacts when I switched (VM runs on Sprint, which is CDMA, therefore no SIM card) which was a real pain. My rule for digital data is “once it’s in a digital device you should never ever have to do data entry of that data again” and when forced to violate it I get cranky.
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If it has a USB port or bluetooth or other kind of computer connectivity, could you leverage some software for the migration? There are some standardization attempts in this field.
Latin American mobile carriers charge extortionate prices for bits that contain SMS messages, which WhatsApp circumvents by using cheaper data-plan bits.
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Two friends plus myself have had Sony Ericsson m600i’s and it’s to this day one of the best phones we’ve ever used. Beautiful, great aesthetics, great email and text functionality, great battery life, simple browser, no “time vampire” apps.
Get it in white and people with the slickest, newest smartphones will still steal glances.
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+1 for cheap Chinaphones here. I’ve used them for years, and anything around £150 is as good as I’ve needed and some have been better build quality than branded ones costing twice as much (some are awful however, YMMV).
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You already ventured a bit into the awesome rabit hole that is rugged phones.
There are even waterprof models with IP56 protection.
Perfect holiday phone. You can wear it at the beach and even while swimming! There are a few, some are huge chunks with rubber and childish over the top design. And some are just regular looking candy bar phones that can take a beating or bathing.
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My mom wanted to get a new dumbphone, so I got her a Windows Phone and turned off the data. 
She loves it!
Actually, I was just looking at Verizon prepaid for my mom since V is apparently is the only service that works in her new town, and they have 2013 Moto G’s for $80! Quite a deal IMO. As for the Advance, I just discovered as part of this research it’s both GSM & CDMA, it can use any MVNO out there, or 2 at once. Nothing to sneeze at. I think what you miss is the essence of this thread, what is “good enough”. The rabbit hole is the chase for something out there that’s always better. The megapixel chase is a fine example. Our HTPC screensaver on our 46" tv is the family photo collection, with the earliest digitals being 2.5mp from an excellent big lens Olympus. And they look great on that screen. How many cam pics even get that far?
1920*1080= 2 Megapixels
3840x2160=8 Megapixels
And Canon just released a 50 Megapixel DSLR.
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And again, mp don’t matter nearly as much as the lens. My phone has 5mp and my 2.5mp Oly 2500L took much better pics since it had a lens nearly the size of an SLR.
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Well, pretty much anyone can make a decent lens nowadays, what with computerized designs and cheap molded asphericals. Unless you’re up into the 20+ megapixel range, it’s almost certainly the sensor that is holding you back.
Is this a 15 year old camera with a maximum ISO of 400 and a 3.9 crop factor?
And again, mp don’t matter nearly as much as the lens.
I’m sure that Canon knows what it’s doing.
wiping that silly smirk off Nikon’s face.
Hey guys, what’s happening?
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Most camera geeks would disagree. Review sites have said for years that the pixel chase was a marketing device and very often the optics of smaller cameras had nowhere near the resolution of the sensor. And the smaller you go the more this is true due the signal to noise increasing. That’s why a big 15mp sensor is better than a small one. It’s particularly true when the lens is 1mm diameter.
Show me some of these sites that say it is the optics/lenses that are holding things back.
Pretty much all of them that I’m familiar with say that the real problem is the small sensors and tiny photosites involved with large-megapixel, small size sensors. Heck, that’s what you actually seem to be saying, as noise is related to the sensor and not the lens being used. Slapping a Leica 35/1.4 in front of a 13 megapixel 1/4" sensor isn’t going to improve image quality. Neither will using iPhone 6 lenses. You get better pictures mainly by using a larger sensor with larger photosites.
If optics really are what’s holding your pictures back, the main complaint will be that they look fuzzy or soft, and not that they look noisy or grainy.
