need cell phone suggestions

[paulr]

My current cell phone, which was a POS to begin with, is about to give up the ghost (cracked hinge and flaky recharger connector). I'm looking for suggestions for a new one. Basic desires:

1. I just want a handheld voice phone. I absolutely don't care about text messaging, ring tones, built-in camera, video games, mp3 playback, bluetooth earpiece, or other blingy nonsense. In fact I prefer one WITHOUT a camera, since I occasionally go places where cameras aren't allowed, but that isn't high importance. I also prefer one without E911 GPS location since I think that feature is a bigger privacy problem (allows tracking your movements) than it's likely to be helpful for emergency location. I do need for the phone to have silent ringing (i.e. vibration) but almost all phones have that now.

2. I prefer a clamshell or flip-type design, which I find is better at preventing accidental button presses. I usually carry the phone powered off unless I have a particular reason to expect an incoming call (e.g. I'm supposed to meet someone someplace so they might call me if there's a snag). I find with a non-clamshell phone the thing keeps powering up in my pocket.

3. I don't need for the phone to be tiny, I'd rather have one that's solid and rugged and has long battery life even if it's on the large side by today's standards.

4. It appears to be a hopeless dream, since I've been looking all over for this with no success, but I'd infinitely prefer a phone that I can run on standard, commodity, rechargeable AA's or AAA's instead of proprietary lithium ion packs. I'd pay a LOT extra for this just as a matter of principle. I do NOT want one of those external gizmos that lets you charge up the lithium cell from an AA cell through a cable; I want to not have lithium batteries at all.

Any ideas?

 

[ACMarina]

Don't think you'll find one that does #4. I saw one that took AAAAs about a month ago but it was too old to activate, no GPS service. In fact, I don't think the carriers will activate a non-GPS phone now as a "liability" issue..

Who's your carrier?

 

[Manzerick]

which carrier do you use?

 

[9volt]

http://www.betanews.com/article/Philips_Develops_AAA_BatteryPowered_Cell_Phone/1175197139

 

[paulr]

which carrier do you use?

Verizon, 800 mhz CDMA I think.

 

[ACMarina]

I'm a verizon user too, and every CS person I've talked to told me they wouldn't activate a non-GPS phone. Sounds like that's out. Most basic phones they have are the LG VX3400 and the PN 300. There's the GzOne if you want "EXTREME" durability

 

[gadget_lover]

We were just at verizon, and they will NOT activate a phone without GPS. They will continue to let you use your old one, just not a new one. This is a shame, as my wife bought 3 backups to her phone before (Moto V60c) before this edict came out. Now we have 5 perfectly usable cell phones that are worthless.

When you check out the clamshells, check the buttons. I really like my Lg VX-8300. It's a clamshell with really good reception and talk time, but it has the camera, mp3 player and other goodies you don't want. It also has 7 buttons on the outside that get pressed now and then. The power button is on the inside.

If you wanta phone without GPS, buy a used cingular or sprint phone on e-bay. They are identified by the movable chip inside the phone. Then sign up for service with cingular or sprint with whatever crappy phone they give for free. Transfer the chip to your used GPSless phone and you are in business.

Keep in mind that the GPS can be used for nefarious purposes, but so can the cell phone signal itself. If the phone is on, it's possible to find it using directional antennas. It's not rocket science.

Daniel

 

[ACMarina]

Cingular (GSM) is the one that uses SIM cards - Sprint requires programming and isn't the type where you can just transfer the card. T-Mobile (may) also be GSM, but I know for sure that Cingular is and Sprint isn't..

 

[9volt]

Cingular and TMobile use SIM cards.

If you sign up with them and already have a phone, take the free phone that is going for the most on ebay. We did that and had 2 phones and made like $400 selling the free phones on ebay.

 

[paulr]

Thanks, that new Philips/Energizer phone that uses an AAA "backup" battery sounds promising. I just don't understand why it's a "backup"; I want to just get rid of the lithium and run on AAA all the time. But it's a start.

Re Cingular/etc.: I kind of have to stay with Verizon because of my account with them and because their coverage is better where I'd be using the phone the most.

Maybe there's some way to disable the GPS in those newer phones?

 

[Fallingwater]

4. It appears to be a hopeless dream, since I've been looking all over for this with no success, but I'd infinitely prefer a phone that I can run on standard, commodity, rechargeable AA's or AAA's instead of proprietary lithium ion packs. I'd pay a LOT extra for this just as a matter of principle. I do NOT want one of those external gizmos that lets you charge up the lithium cell from an AA cell through a cable; I want to not have lithium batteries at all.

This isn't easy.
There is no phone that uses AA or AAA cells out of the box.
There are, however, older phones that can use both LiIon or flat NiMH batteries. The flat cells those batteries use aren't a common item, but it's trivial, if you have a cursory knowledge of soldering irons and hot-melt glue, to extract the original cells from the pack and wire up a battery holder with NiMH AAs which you can strap to the back of the phone.
It won't be pretty, and it won't be light, but it WILL be effective.
You won't be able to use non-rechargeable cells in the holder, since they all have higher voltage, but three high capacity rechargeables will cost you very little and will power the phone for, approximately, a million years.
Alternatively, you can use an AAA holder. Their life will be rather shorter, but they will definitely be lighter.

 

[gadget_lover]

I like fallingwater's idea, but some cell phones will not work with aftermarket batteries. The integrated circuit in the battery pack has to report a proper code to the phone. If you swap out the cells the phone may reject the batteries anyway.

My wife's stupid Verizon Motorola KRZR will charge from a usb port, but not from a DC adapter wired to look and act (power wise) as a USB port. It reports "unauthorized charger". As if my copmputer has a smart charging device in it. Sheesh.

Daniel

 

[paulr]

My old Nokia 5100 had an accessory 4xAAA pack available but I no longer have that phone and from how it sounds above, Verizon wouldn't activate one anyway if I managed to find a new one, because of the GPS issue. Also I don't think that pack had any recharge input. You had to open it up, take the cells out, charge them in a separate charger, and put them back in, not so convenient for a frequently used gadget.

It never occurred to me that any supposedly USB-recharging phone would refuse to recharge from one of those "USB power port" terminals now showing up on many battery chargers etc. What madness.

I'm about to have to start an ebay dispute with someone because he sold me a replacement pack for my old phone. He got my payment and sent me the pack which works just fine, but his checkout software reported me as a non-paying bidder and he doesn't respond to email. What a pain in the neck. As I see it, the problem isn't that the seller is a lamer (we've got to expect that) but that I had to buy a replacement pack on ebay in the first place (local retailers don't have that pack, and would charge a fortune for them if they had them). I just despise these proprietary packs since whenever I need more AA NiMH cells I just go to a store and buy them, no hassle. I'd happily pay quite a bit for an AA or AAA pack for my phone, that wasn't some weird kludge with wires or crap strapped onto the phone (it's ok if it's a bit larger than a normal pack but the phone has to operate normally and not look too weird). I wonder if it's possible to make something like that specially, in the flashlight modder spirit.

 

[gadget_lover]

I think it could be done. You'd want to check first whether it would power up using the batteries in question. Then making a carrier becomes the next challenge. Making it fit is the challenge after that.

Daniel

 

[Sub_Umbra]

...My wife's stupid Verizon Motorola KRZR will charge from a usb port, but not from a DC adapter wired to look and act (power wise) as a USB port. It reports "unauthorized charger". As if my copmputer has a smart charging device in it. Sheesh...

My wife's Motorola gets the same message two thirds of the time when she tries to use one of those emergency chargers that run on one AA cell. Very annoying. Too clever by half.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

paulr-

I've been following your quest for the AA powered phone for some time now. Be sure to tell us if you ever find one -- I want one, too.

 

[Fallingwater]

I'll add that I did manage to run my old Siemens M35i from a three-cell AA pack.
It was, however, not pretty to look at.
I don't care about aesthetics, and I actually like the look of a hacked gadget (I modified my mp3 player to accept a RCR123 LiIon cell and now it looks pretty weird), so that wouldn't be a problem for me... but I can see why others may not want a pack strapped to the back of the phone.

This reminds me: there are a few old phones, such as my dad's very old Philips and another old Alcatel I've used, that have a battery pack that contains nothing but 3 ordinary AAA cells.
In the standard configuration you're not meant to be able to open the pack and get at the cells, instead you have to buy another waaaaay overpriced pack when yours fails. It should be trivial, however, to crack the pack open and install a few contacts so you can replace cells at will. And it wouldn't look bad, either, because the phone has a cover to put on its back.

I like fallingwater's idea, but some cell phones will not work with aftermarket batteries. The integrated circuit in the battery pack has to report a proper code to the phone. If you swap out the cells the phone may reject the batteries anyway.

This mostly happens for lithium cells. If the phone is of the old generation (think Nokia 3310) that can use flat NiMH packs, the only thing likely to be connected to the third terminal is a thermal probe, whose purpose is to interrupt charging if the temperature gets too high.
The pack works fine with the probe disconnected.

Of course, if your provider needs a modern GPS-enabled phone you can't use old ones, and I make no guarantee that modern "smart" phones will accept such a hacked pack.