In his Times online column last week controversial motormouth Jeremy Clarkson turned his acid tongue to mobile phones, berating retailers for the ridiculously high-tech gadgets they stock, and not catering for the average consumer who wants a phone, and nothing but!
Not one single mobile phone company in this vast and glorious world is offering a phone that is just that. A phone. A device that enables you to speak with someone a long way away.
What I want is a mobile phone with a battery that lasts for more than six seconds. This means no colour screen. A colour screen uses more electricity than the Pentagon. I do not want it to take photographs. I do not want it to play music. I do not want to receive e-mails. I want it to be a telephone.
Well Jeremy, you’re in luck! We understand your pain, and have been working flat out to produce the perfect Clarkson phone!
Clarkson phone 1
What do you think? Can’t get much simpler than that! A good old fashioned dial to compensate for the awkward little keypads on modern phones, a talk and stop talking button, and an on and off switch! It’s the size of a credit card comes in a robust bakelite case! But best or all it works on the same principle as an automatic watch, ie. it uses kinetic energy to charge the battery, so as long as you carry it about with you it should never run out of battery!!
No? Too fiddly? Well how about this one?
Clarkson phone 2
Now we’re talking. No faffing around with phone numbers, all your speed dials are preprogrammed in, just punch the button to go straight to Richard Hammond, James May, Stig, or maybe the DVLA to take care of those speeding tickets!
And just to make sure you never run out of juice the back is crammed full of Duracells!
Unfortunately these phones aren’t in development, yet, but while you’re waiting might we suggest the Nokia 8800 Aston Martin edition?
We know you’re an Aston lover, and what’s more the 8800 is one of the least technically advanced phones in the market! All style and no substance, you’ll struggle to do anything but make a phone call on this!
And if that doesn’t even float your boat might we suggest a phone in the unmistakable shape of the Porsche Cayenne
Ok maybe not!
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15 Comments
If you watch this evening’s Top Gear (02/12/07 – BBC), you’ll notice that Mr Clarkson now uses an iPhone! Hypocrisy? Not a bit..
is there any way to disable the camera on my N95? it scares and bewilders me.
also I want to see if I can hack out the satnav. all of these features are unnecessary
pls help
“Unga bunga”, to all cave people on blog, there already basic phones there for you, they called “walky Talkies” you can pick one up from local “toys R us” store.
I’ve begun a group on Facebook called the Campaign for simple mobile phones. Simple being defined as no more than 5 buttons apart from the numeric keypad.
Sam, we’d be delighted to hear your thoughts on simple phones! draft us a blog and send it to blog@dialaphone.com, and if we like it we’ll stick it up.
Aarrgghh!! You’ve stolen my thunder. I was in the midst of plotting a “What about simple phones?” type blog post, inspired purely by my brother-in-law’s choice of the SE J100i as his weapon of choice. Used it for 3 minutes and 17 seconds when he first got it, and wanted to fire it uncerimoniously off the nearest wall. It’s horrible. But it does EXACTLY what it says on the tin, and that’s why he wanted it.
These phones are obviously as cheap as chips since there’s nuffin in them (relatively speaking, of course). But I reckon there’s a real market out there for people who crave absolute simplicity.
Clarkson has his moments, but in general I find him quite entertaining. He’s just the sort of grumpy old man I’d expect to be giving off about something like this.
Wow.its really kool .i would love to buy this cell phone as soon as possible. It is looking very beautiful. Plz can any one tell me some good sites about mobile accessories in Uk.
well thank you so much for this blog keep update this blog.
mmmmm
Clarkson, whats he know about mobile phones? He should stick to whats his bearly good at and thats telling us what cars to buy and in the immortals of my dearly departed granddad, not to buy. whats he want anyway a cup and a pice of string attached to it. We should take away his car and give a Flintstone car instead.
Here you are mate a car without any ridiculously high-tech gadgets, use your feet.
Clarkson phone 1, is the worst design i’ve ever seen.
you see these kind of posts pop up every couple of months. and I still don’t think that anyone has done it better than motorola with the MOTOFONE, which you can see here http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/motofone/. If you click on the “learn more” button, there is a great backstory of the research they did to come up with the stripped down, simplified phone design. get the backstory here: http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/motofone/experience/
I would buy the first on in an instant. That’s all I really want
I want a phone with a big number 5, cos it’s the most used number, yeah? Clarkson is well plastic, power to dial-a-thingamy yeah? No more phone cameras, they encourage paedomania. Peace out gentlef*-£s.
They nice phones. This phone in Thailand will be popular. Is good idea!
This comical take on current mobies could actually be a stomping great success…
The Clarkson 1 is aptly named “Dial A Phone”. Because it is so simple & proper retro there isn’t a designer, lovey, wannabe or idiot that wouldn’t want to be associated with this refreshing & original idea.