(via ChrisH on Vox)
Charlie Brooker speaks much truth on the subject of mobile phones. He’s talking about a Samsung E900, but I think the same thing applies to most phones I’ve seen in the last couple of years.
The menu system is a confusing mangle of branching dead ends. It has touch-sensitive buttons that either refuse to work, or leap into action if you breathe on them. One such button also terminates calls, so it is easy to cut people off merely by holding the phone against your ear to hear them. It has no apparent “silent” mode, and when you set it to vibrate, it buzzes like a hornet in a matchbox.
It is lumbered with a bewildering array of unnecessary “features” aimed at idiots, including a mode that scans each text message and turns some of the words into tiny ani- mations, so if someone texts to say they have just run over your child in their car, the word “car” is replaced by a wacky cartoon vehicle putt-putting onto the screen. There is also a crap built-in game in which you play a rabbit (“Step into the role of Bobby Carrot – the new star of cute, mind-cracking carrot action!”).
I’m in the market for a new phone in the not too distant future. Or rather, I’m finally giving up on Orange and am planning to move to another mobile provider. This will almost certainly entail getting a new phone, but if I can’t find anything better (for free!) then I’ll just stick the new SIM into my Nokia N91.