A £7.49 mobile phone....

[3GScottishUser]

It really is...

£7.49 when you buy just £5 worth of airtime.

Honest!!

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/commerce/servlet/gben-pd-ProductDisplay?PN=NETWORKS.JAN06MOTC115749&origin=SPECIALOFFER

[Ben]

And we wonder why the world isn't jumping on the 3G bandwagon.

What the benefit of a £7.49 phone can possibly be is beyond me. It's beyond affordable, too. It's almost unacceptable. The materials that go into such electronic products are too detrimental to be so disposable.

[Hands0n]

I see this as the thin end of a wedge. Motorola (and others) have/will identify the Luddite market which just wants the simplicity of making phone calls and sending texts. Imagine wrapping this in any number of stylised cases and even the most budget conscious could be seen having a few in the dressing table drawer. One for each of the kids, it wouldnt be much of a big deal if lost or mislaid.

Environmentally, I'm with you Ben. It ranks with the Teddyphone.

[miffed]

I am tempted to buy & cupboard a few of these for my kids , who see breaking and losing mobiles as some kind of hobby

I noticed 256mb mp3 players at £9.75 an tescos the other day ! imagine the cost buying 256mb of ANYTHING a few years back ?

Amazing !

[Hands0n]

Scary, too, that it is so very easy to fill up 256MB - the youngest would not accept anything less than a 512MB mp3 player!

I may just buy one of those 7-pounder phones for the Inlaws (83 yrs old) who have just this year discovered the benefits of mobile telephony courtesy of a very old 2G handset that I dug out of retirement (possibly the first tri-band ever, it is huge making 3G look petite!).

But how long before we see 3G variants of such simple phones at such simple prices? 3G simply (!) has to cater for the people who do not want all of these wonderful bells and whistles that us enthusiasts love so much.

[miffed]

3G simply (!) has to cater for the people who do not want all of these wonderful bells and whistles that us enthusiasts love so much.


Which kind of defeats its purpose - classic example of industry trying to force a product onto the masses that they neither want or need !

Makes things good for us techies though !

[Ben]

Still, the networks have the increased capacity advantage of using UMTS - so creating 'simply' 3G phones isn't entirely a waster. At the moment, dual-mode isn't very convincing. Unless vast hardware and software improvements are made I think it's fair enough to say that we need to move to UMTS Only handsets, meaning stripped down 3G is a necessity.

[Hands0n]

Yes, the [increased] capacity advantage and contained tariffs mean that their margins are higher than with GSM. Okay, fair enough they have to get some payback for the intial license fee and the 3G build out. But 3G is not a short-term proposition, no shorter than GSM ever was. So the notion of UMTS-only handsets cannot be too far away, measured in perhaps months rather than years. With that I would expect the design and engineering costs of handsets to fall also - more margin increases for the manufacturers. Some of this will pass on to the consumer - and so the £7.49 handset could become routine.

Dare I say that we could even see truly disposable handsets bought like a packet of ciggies from a vending machine. Environmentally these would not be too much of a good thing - recycling electronics is EU regulated these days. So that challenge will have to be overcome - perhaps by putting a returns value on them (like Coca Cola bottles of old).

It'll be interesting to watch, but I rather fancy that £7 handsets will be immensely popular on 2G and 3G with the masses.