Yesterday my wife was explaining to me why she found her Windows Mobile smartphone to be a pain to use. It does everything she needs, but does it in a way which perplexes her from time to time and I can feel her pain. The use of a stylus, the tiny menu options and everything else about it drives her crazy. The question is- what smartphone would be ideal for her?
She wants text messaging, GPS, Solitaire and phone calls. Yes, that is it. Nothing else- no fancy PIM synchronisation, no super arcade quality gaming experience and most of all a decent battery life and reliability. The problem is the she is used to the handwriting recognition of Windows Mobile and so has been spoilt by some of the good features which the lesser feature phones do not employ. If we take away the data input we are left with a selection of phones that would fit the bill.
Nokia has done well to cover the middle ground in the smartphone to feature phone gap and a device like the Nokia 5230 would appear to be the sensible option. It is under £100 and includes GPS for life, 3G, a touch screen and everything else she needs. When you look at the market as a whole the big players in the smartphone market seem to have forgotten about this middle ground. RIM does not make a low priced smartphone that will appeal to the masses. Apple obviously doesn’t and even HTC struggles with the notion of not filling a phone with as much functionality as possible. The HTC Rome is a move in the right direction, but merely a nod rather than a serious commitment.
The vast majority of people still want a phone that works with maybe some specific extras and Samsung, LG and the like are trying to cover that area, but the obsession with bringing as much as possible to the latest smartphones means that ultimately the move upwards for the general population will be slowed. I am sure my wife will be happy with her new Nokia 5230 though, but then again…
Nokia is almost alone in producing very well made mid price smartphones, with excellent phone quality and specs you would normally find on top end devices. The 5230 is priced as a feature phone but it’s definitely a smartphone with lots pack into it, as well as running a decent mobile OS. It’s a shame more companies aren’t getting there yet – an HTC or Google budget smartphone would be interesting.
What about the HTC Tattoo? Didn’t she like that when you reviewed it? I thought that came with a fairly decent price tag, and with nice set of features.
She liked it for a couple of days and then found it to be a pain to use. If I could figure her out I would surely try:)
Will you do… or get her to do a review of the Nokia 5230? It would be interesting.