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- Copyright Hunter Strategies LLC
Since I’m fast approaching senior citizen status and find a lot to grouch about with cell phones, I was interested in Ed Oswald’s review at BetaNews of the Jitterbug phone (a product of Great Call) which is directed at senior citizens:
For many seniors, using a cell phone can be a challenging and intimidating experience. Thus, they opt to not carry a cell phone; or if they do, refrain from using it much. A company called Jitterbug aims to change that.
Every part of the Jitterbug phone — built by Samsung — is designed to take into account the needs of this group. From the design of the handset to the simplified user interface, and even features that attempt to make it as much like a regular phone as possible, the learning curve is much less steep than a traditional cellular handset.
But does this phone measure up with the consumer? BetaNews shared the Jitterbug with several people within the target demographic and what we found was a near universal positive response to the device.
Hit the link for the full review, but there’s a lot of goodness there:
The only thing they didn’t like was that it was offered for Sprint’s CDMA network only (coverage maps here), the screen could have been bigger, and that it was hard to find where to plug in the recharger.
I’m all for ergonomic improvements in cell phones since small size and small print are already an annoyance for me and my bifocals, but the latter three features take the Jitterbug into a wholly different territory specific to users who can’t handle the complexity of ordinary cellphones. Hitting the Jitterbug website shows much more of the this including a version of the phone called “Jitterbug OneTouch” that only has keys for Operator, Tow, and 911. I won’t need that for quite a while I hope, but it seems like a reasonable convenience for those that do.
Other reviews:
Finally, I haven’t mentioned the service plans and for that I’m afraid the Jitterbug isn’t much of an improvement over regular cell phones - you still need to be a bit of a lawyer to figure them out, particularly since the phone isn’t necessarily included with the service. If you can’t figure out a cell phone menu, you may not be able to figure out the offerings either.
To net it out: the Jitterbug has a few bugs, but it seems like a worthwhile offering for senior citizens who could use cell phone access and for their loved ones who would like to provide them with it.
Earlier in the year we covered Sprint Nextel’s push (in the USA) to take on the telco DSL providers with high speed wireless starting with EV-DO, but that was always just the first step. Now Sprint Nextel, not satisfied with just 3G (third-generation) mobile data, will roll out a faster 4G network using WiMax later this year:
The network, which will start to be rolled out by the fourth quarter and reach as many as 100 million people around the U.S. by the end of next year, will offer downstream speeds of 2Mbps to 4Mbps, Sprint said Tuesday. Combined with fast uplinks, WiMax will offer enough bandwidth for mobile videoconferencing, transfers of large enterprise files and other applications, executives said.
Partners Intel, Motorola, and Samsung Electronics plan to help by equipping notebook PCs and a variety of mobile devices to use the 4G network.
Sprint Nextel is the third-largest U.S. mobile operator. Its choice of WiMax is the first endorsement of the metropolitan-area wireless data system by a major U.S. carrier. Sprint holds licenses around the country for radio spectrum in the 2.5GHz band and had considered other 4G technologies. The carrier said it chose WiMax because it believes it could build an ecosystem of equipment makers around the technology, which is based on the IEEE 802.16e standard.
The 4G service will complement Sprint Nextel’s 3G EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) services, executives said at a New York press conference, monitored via webcast. The carrier is already offering video, music and other multimedia services on 3G, but that technology doesn’t deliver the economics Sprint needs, said Barry West, Sprint chief technology officer and president of Sprint’s newly formed 4G business unit. The WiMax network can deliver four times the throughput at one-tenth the cost of 3G, he said.
Pricing of 4G services will easily meet Sprint Nextel’s frequently stated goal of offering customers 1GB of data per month for less than US$20, West said. “We are significantly south of that,” he said.
The speed is great, but $20 per GB seems a bit pricey to me. Maybe that’s just the first GB and subsequent ones are much cheaper? They’re competing with fixed price “all you can eat” services like DSL to fixed locations or mobile services like their own EV-DO offering and can only charge so much for speed before customers will choose the lower speed option as “good enough.” And yes, prices will undoubtedly drop with time.
Now that the Palm has released the Treo 700p smartphone with the Palm OS from PalmSource, it’s possible to do a side-by-side comparison review with the Treo 700w running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS (announced in January), and Eric Benderoff does just that at the Chicago Tribune. Hit the link for all the details, but his net is that while experienced Palm OS users will prefer the 700p, new users will prefer the Windows interface on the 700w.