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Comment by heterogenic | Hacker News Reader

I'm sticking with my MOTOFONE F3 (The "Zombie Apocalypse" phone: e-ink display and a 2-week battery life.)

It feels like Nokia's missing the mark here though. Once you get below a certain threshold, you hit customers who are prioritizing price, simplicity, size or battery life. The Nokia 515 is pretty good on all of those, but not the leader on any. It's sort of the least dumb dumbphone, but not necessarily a great dumbphone.

I don't quite know who this is for... but I sure wish they'd applied the same energy to optimizing for size or battery life in a beautiful container. Something that can fit in my smaller pockets and has a great antenna would be amazing as a "going out" phone, even if it only did voice & SMS.

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It may be perfect for me. Smartphones are a strange thing, they are just the wrong mix of everything: Can't rely on it as a phone, (too big, too expensive when stolen, low battery life), and they are not great at user input either: Want to write down some notes? Oh well, use this tiny screen. Oh and you can't do it while talking to someone over the phone.. because you know why. Wan't to find your way to a target destination? Go read your directions on a tiny screen, possibly with sunlight on a glossy screen.

Today I had the idea of buying a feature phone or dumbphone in addition to a tablet. The tablet would ideally still be able to fit into my pocket and have a portable keyboard. Not sure where to find something like that, but I haven't looked yet.

Ideally this dumbphone would still be able to sync seemlessly with the tablet and I could write apps for it.

From what you are describing, the nexus 4 might be perfect for you. It's only $50 more expensive than this phone, and has addressed most of your concerns.

That's pretty much what I was thinking. The product page for this phone on the Nokia website says it can be used as a 3.5G modem, but it doesn't say whether this is as a wifi access point or over bluetooth. I'm guessing the latter.

In any case, I am seriously considering ditching my smartphone, and switching to a combination of a feature phone like the 515 and a 7" tablet (New Nexus 7). That, for me, sounds like a killer combo.

Fitting into your pocket and being good for more than momentary use are, I find, at odds.

However, something the size of a Kindle can fit just about anywhere else. Backpack, table, car dash, lap, in your hand, etc... so that is the size of tablet I intend to get, based on my experience with the Kindles.

And better hope you can get to your destination before the battery runs out.

Not to mention trying to read the directions while the screen goes to sleep every 30 seconds.

According to the article, it has a 38 day battery life, which is more than double yours and as high as any phone that I'm aware of. I'm not sure what point you're making here.

Yes, I see that. However it is a few mm thicker, 50% heavier, 400% more expensive and 7 years(!!!!) newer.

Imagine what they could do if they were actually optimizing on dumbphone strengths!

"They could've done even better" doesn't invalidate his argument, though.

No: they could've done different.

As it is, it's sufficient in battery life but slightly larger and much more expensive. Close, but not worth upgrading for.

Exactly. Now, this same phone at 100mm x 44mm x 7mm ? I'll buy that today.

The Sonim X3 I am using easily gives me 2 months of the battery life. So 38 days is definitely not a record.

Despite that, this Nokia phone looks really nice, and twice as cheap.

"Something that can fit in my smaller pockets and has a great antenna would be amazing as a "going out" phone, even if it only did voice & SMS."

We (Nokia) did that. The Nokia Asha line hits price points way below the fancypants 515. The Nokia 105 goes as low as $20.

They're probably some of the most under-appreciated marvels of mobile device engineering out there.

</tootingMyOwnHorn>

You had me excited there for a minute!

But nothing as thin or light as my F3 (though they are prettier).

I have used the F3 for a few years now and love it. Only issue I have is that it takes a while to access my phonebook after turning the phone on, but with two week battery life, why turn it off?

Actually to be totally honest it's dwindled down to like 3-day battery life. I should get a new battery. But the phone is tough. One of my friends dropped it on the sidewalk and it's fine. I keep the phone with my keys and it's all scratched up but still fine.

I've got it on a prepaid plan I can refill via a phone call. Seriously I feel free with this thing. Might be nice to have maps on it or Lyft, but whatever...I just call a cab for god's sake.

My phone of choice is this no-name Samsung one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007F9XJDY

It's dirt cheap ($28), quad band, dual sim card, pretty light, pretty tiny, really durable, has no internet capabilities (ie. no bloatware), a flashlight, and the battery lasts 2 weeks (although some reason my last charge only lasted 5 days).

It's not my ideal minimalist phone, but it's the closest I've found so far. The perfect phone would be thinner, look nicer, have an e-ink screen, month long battery life, and be made of some unbreakable material.

Meh. It looked good, until I saw the review that said the charging plug is proprietary. I am currently boycotting phones that do not include USB. A barrel connector for the wall-wart is fine, but it better be able to charge over USB too.

Same, I love the motofone and I got 2 of them for 20-something dollars off ebay! Lost one, the other one has been through tons of abuse. Still going strong.

Demo of car driving over it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKocfAk7W4Q

I believe it's for countries that value cost all the time, not just those of us who need a cheap phone. I don't think I'm explaining this properly.

Markets like Thailand, Philippines, Korea to a lesser extent, are interested in having cheap phones, but when that's ALL that they're going to have, they do want something nice, they do want that premium feel.

These are the same places that Nokia still has massive market share in feature phones, and this will only help advance those markets, I believe.

Lets not forget that Asha is an Indian name!

I also have a MOTOFONE F3 as my only phone.

This model continues to be the model to beat in this space, and it is stupefying to see that in 2013, with as little as this Nokia does, it is thicker than the F3, at 11mm (vs. F3 @ 9.1mm).

If they can make a 7mm thick smartphone with two cameras and GPS, etc., why can't this little Nokia be <7mm thick ?

>>>If they can make a 7mm thick smartphone with two cameras and GPS, etc., why can't this little Nokia be <7mm thick ?

I'm not sure, but I think it has to do with the network its built for. The Motofone is a dual band GSM. The 515 has CDMA capabilities. I know most CDMA phones tend to be a little thicker because they need a specific antenna and some additional hardware, which doesn't allow them to be as thin as they could be.

Again, not positive, but it's what some engineers told me a while back when Verizon was getting some of the high demand Motorola phones and we were wondering why they were thicker than their AT&T and T-mobile counterparts.

Wow, I never heard of that motofone, but it looks pretty awesome. My biggest concern would be, can the screen light up at all for when in dark places/nighttime?

Looks like you can only buy the F3 which is GSM only. I'd love to have one of these for when I'm in the boonies here in the US, but thats typically only covered by CDMA. F3c is not available, even on ebay.

Yes, it is LED 'backlit' (more like side-lit). The eink display is readable even in the lowest light though, as it has a pretty big font.

It does have a backlight for just that reason. The size and simple functionality are the best if that's all you need.

Yup, it works just fine in the dark. Never any glare.

I wanted this one when I was looking for a dumbphone a few years ago... I settled for an Emporia Elegance. Not the same :/

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