John’s Phone Review

John’s phone is the simplest mobile phone on the planet, or at least it aims to be. In the quest for the peak of technology simplification it sacrifices WiFi, a colour screen, GPS, the ability to send and receive text messages amongst basically everything else. And no, it will not play Angry Birds. So is the trade off worth it? Read on to find out.

Review

The white model dubbed 'snow' makes good use of its rectangular shape

Unboxing the handset the phone carries a simplistic theme, showing a face of the phone on each side of the box and a list of ‘features’ on the back, which hilariously calls out a sim card slot as one of its many technological high points. The box itself was a little hard to open but when prized open the cardboard gave way to a vacuum packed box featuring the phone, a charger, a usb cable, manual and wired headset. It is a barebones selection for a barebones phone and quite frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Taking a look at the front of the phone we are greeted with a set of three holes at the top which act as a speaker grill (for you know, hearing people, that’s totally a feature). Moving down we see a full set of numbers housed in pleasantly clicky surroundings and below that (on the white model) a set of adorable sent and end keys, dressed as shouting and quiet tots. And well, that’s about it for the front of the phone. Along the top there’s a tiny monochrome screen which shows the number you’re dialling and incoming numbers (no names, it doesn’t have an integrated address book) as well as signal strength and a battery indicator which cleverly deletes one letter out of the word “John’s” as the battery goes down, a sweet touch.

The screen to the top of the device was bright and clear

Along the side we have a volume rocker, a profile switch and an on/off/lock switch. All of which are monumentally hard to use, it’s something you’d get used to but for most non former world thumb wresting champions it’s a little bit frustrating, but thankfully you’re not going to be using them a whole lot as it is.

Now, for John’s phone’s biggest feature – a paper address book attached to the back of the phone, hiding behind a rather classy clear plastic swing open draw allowing you to see in to your most important numbers without having to pull the tray open. The booklet is intentionally cute, and you can’t help but guffaw (yes, I said guffaw) at some of the little touches held within it. As well as having enough space for all your contacts, it has a text message section which you can rip out and give to the recipient and even a games section, featuring tic-tac-toe. It’s full of little touches like that and it really is nice to see so much effort put into something most people aren’t going to notice. There’s even a little pen included to write in it, which you’re going to lose very quickly indeed.

We found the notepad to be hugely fun

So how is it as a phone? Actually, it’s pretty great at what it does, people at the other end of the phone could hear me loud and clear (for better or worse) and I could hear them just fine too, the actual process of being in a call is as painless as could be. You can even affix speed dial requests to each number for convenience.

Wrap Up

So there we have it, John’s phone. It’s hardly the most ergonomically designed beast in the world, it is after all a rectangle in every sense of the word and the buttons on the left hand side are a bit of a bugger to get working, however with a bit of practice you get very used to it indeed.

Personally, I believe that in striving towards ultimate simplicity the outfit have made some serious ease of use features. However, the phone could easily store numbers but it doesn’t and it feels like a novelty rather than a breath of fresh air. Still, if you are the type who knows the numbers he/she wants to ring, you’re going to adore the simplicity that Johns has to offer.

So what is our verdict? Well, for what the handset does so well (making calls) I can happily award it a 9/10. However for smaller details such as the slightly inoperable side buttons the final score has to come down by two whole points.

Rating: (7/10)