A phone is a phone is a phone …

I’m in the market for a new mobile phone and it’s causing a bit of a dilemma.

I make no secret of the fact that I’m not a fan of the invasive mobile phone. It drives me nuts when I’m at a restaurant and someone is constantly making or receiving calls. I was at lunch with a friend on Monday when exactly that happened, in fact. No, it wasn’t either of us with an unhealthy attachment to our phones, it was the guy at the next table. And damn, that ringtone was loud.

I get that there are some people who can’t turn their phones off for various reasons — their job means they must be available at all times, they’re expecting an important call, they have a sick family member etc — but in those cases at least turn the bloody thing down! When my father-in-law was sick I kept my phone on all the times but had it at a volume that wouldn’t disturb everyone within 6 blocks!

Even more annoying is the texter who just doesn’t know when to put the phone down. Here’s a hint, if you’re having an actualy, real-life conversation with an actual, real-life person in front of you, it’s incredibly bad manners to be texting. It’s also bad manners to do it at work or (as I struck a little while ago) when you work in retail and have actual, real-life customers waiting to be served.

Anyway, back to my mobile phone dilemma. I don’t like texting. I don’t require my phone to take photos (have a perfectly good camera for that) or video (again, have a perfectly good camera for that). I don’t want to play games on it, use it for GPS or anything else except make or receive the occasional call.

However, out at our wee home-away-from-home on the river, I might want some mobile broadband. So, now I can’t decide whether I should go for a 3G capable beast or stick with the original plan of getting something uber-simple.

And on the subject of uber-simple, John’s Phonemakes and receives calls. That’s it, no bells and whistles, no texting, no fluffy bits to make a geek squeal with excitement.

Even the address book is low-tech: it’s a wee notepad hidden inside the phone so you can find your contacts even if your battery is flat!