If by "anti iPhone" you mean "the zombie apocalypse phone", then yes, absolutely.
It's as well-tailored to the third would (for which is was specifically designed) as the iPhone is to the first. For instance, it doesn't use USB to charge (computers are hardly ubiquitous), and you can navigate all the commands using installed voice prompts, since basic literacy isn't a given either.
Something else not reliably found everywhere: electricity. The F3 responds with an e-ink display that allows 500 hours of standby between charges. Dirt floors, on the other hand (to say nothing of paths and roads) are standard, which is why the one-piece membrane on the front is so well-placed. Unlike a many 'smartphones', it's not easily thwarted by moisture or grit.
Indeed, at $22.59, it may be the smartest phone on the planet.
I have one of those, I haven't charged it in a year. Let me check what state it's in.
Fun fact: It uses the same jack for the headset as for the charger. Also, it uses a low-frequency pulse in its speaker for vibration instead of a motor. I wonder how I know all this, I must have opened it up at some point.
EDIT: Jesus, it works fine and the battery is full. Apparently, this phone is something to keep in the car in case of emergency. A year unused and the battery is still full.
I consider myself an Apple tech fan (have an iPod touch and iPad myself, just not the phone), but I really do think there should be more of these kinds of devices in the first world, as well as the third. Apple’s first gen iPhone was a sort of return to Apple’s roots regarding simplicity, with limited functionality and easy usability, but the uproar over the whole “web app, no native app” concept Steve tried to push initially caused Apple to change course to an App Store model.
There are a few companies trying to sell “minimum viable” cellphones in the States, but you don’t hear all that much about them…
I think the focus on keypads is a mistake. I'd love a phone roughly like the OP's phone, except with a full range of characters and a largish keyboard.
I don't think there's a lot of reason the phone needs to be so small either. I would bet you could make a Droid X sized phone, but lighter, with a nice hardware keyboard and great shock adsorption for about the cost of the OP phone.
The fact that 'minimum viable' lacks texting is the result of price-fixing on the part of American carriers, not an intrinsic faculty of mobile devices.
I don't see the advantage in using USB for charging. And a couple of advantages of not using USB. Perhaps using a USB connector was slightly more expensive to manufacture than using standard dc-power connector. More importantly it's probably a lot easier to buy or build a third party power adapter with a standard dc connector than one with a USB male connector. Which is important when selling to countries without easy access to well stocked electronics retailers.
I actually just ditched my iPhone for a phone only marginally more sophisticated than this[1], but with the same standby time.
I thought about trying to find an F3 instead, the only thing that put me off was the apparently very crummy text messaging. That's one thing that I still wanted to do.
It's quite hard to find a decent quality non-color-screen phone, though. Nokia still make at least one, but to cut costs they put the earpiece on the back side of the handset (combined with the loudspeaker). Which apparently makes it hard to talk on sensibly.
I think if a manufacturer took current technology and built a phone with a ten year old feature set and no colour screen, to a ~$80 RRP budget, they could get months of standby time and a tiny light device that would last for decades.[2]
[2] Not sure how big the market is, though. Even in the "third world" countries everyone is talking about, fancy phones are usually a big status symbol.
A friend of mine bought one of these because he thought it would be cool. And it was pretty cool, though keep in mind, it's just a phone. so my friend ended up getting an iphone (well, a friend of his broke her iphone, so he got a free broken iphone, and being that sort of person, he successfully repaired it.)
Anyhow, once I visited the guy and I left my phone charger at home, so after my nokia e90 died, I borrowed his third world phone. My t mobile sim 'just worked' and it seemed like a fairly competent phone overall... but really, voice communication is only about 10% of what I use a phone for, and that's all this thing can do, so for me, it's of limited utility.
I used this phone for over a year. Texting is incredibly awkward, all lower-case, and you can only see seven characters at a time. I got used to it, but I preferred not to. Address book is stored only in the SIM, which I think is fairly unique in the US. MMSes show up as weird bits of text with URLs, but that might have been a by-product of T-Mobile's service. It was solidly constructed, and had excellent reception and battery life.
I'm not sure I saw the "500 hours" of standby time, but I doubt I went 20 days without a text message or a phone call. Heavy use and I still had to charge it every couple of days. Regular to light use and I could go a week.
I use an F3 as my primary phone. I bought it in late 2006 just to avoid making an investment because there were a lot of rumors at the time about a new phone made by Apple.
One of the biggest advantages for me was dropping out of the feature-upgrade rat race entirely. My phone is exactly as out of date now as it was when I bought it and I expect to have it at least another 10 years. It looks brand new, sounds great, is easy to use and has an insanely long battery life (though a dictionary would be nice!)
It's not for everyone though, and I can see how 'downgrading' might be difficult (especially for addicts).
Even though it's been on the market 3-4 years, this phone is still held up as the example of a cheap, no-frills phone. It was even nicknamed the "zombie phone" and received a bit of discussion on a recent Engadget Mobile podcast:
As an owner and former user of an F3, I really like the simplicity and ruggedness. I wish that Motorola had continued to develop it to address its terrible shortcomings: lettering was rendered semi-1337-style through old-school LED typography and it could not display an entire 10 digit number across its screen. I don't know why they bothered to support text messaging at all because it was utterly unusable.
I still keep it around as a hurricane backup as my iPhone SIM plugs in to make calls without issue.
For a simple cell phone and texting device, I miss my old Samsung T509. It had a super slim candybar form factor that slid in and out of my pocket easily and didn't create a bulge in my pants. Looks like you can get a new one for about $20.
Of course, as well as it served for phone calls and texts, if you tried to do anything more with it (run java apps, add an mp3 ringtone), it disappointed.
I wish I could own this phone, but I do text a lot (and, in fact, only "phone" people by swapping voicemail messages.) If it had a QWERTY keyboard (and a screen that could manage text, though hopefully still e-ink) I'd be in love. I can imagine such a thing as the ultimate low-end product from RIM.
Wow, I wasn't aware something like this even existed.
With that amazing price point ($22 on Amazon) I'd almost buy one right now as I've been wanting to move away from cell phones on the whole, but the inability to wire contacts in and the horrific SMS capabilities are making me hesitate.
Keep in mind, the F3 doesn't work with CDMA networks (like Verizon). There theoretically is an F3c that does work with CDMA networks, but I've been looking for it for weeks, and haven't had any luck. If you find a source for the F3c, please let me know.
From the phone's "features": "This unlocked cell phone is compatible with GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile. Not all carrier features may be supported. It will not work with CDMA carriers like Verizon Wireless, Alltel and Sprint."
It's as well-tailored to the third would (for which is was specifically designed) as the iPhone is to the first. For instance, it doesn't use USB to charge (computers are hardly ubiquitous), and you can navigate all the commands using installed voice prompts, since basic literacy isn't a given either.
Something else not reliably found everywhere: electricity. The F3 responds with an e-ink display that allows 500 hours of standby between charges. Dirt floors, on the other hand (to say nothing of paths and roads) are standard, which is why the one-piece membrane on the front is so well-placed. Unlike a many 'smartphones', it's not easily thwarted by moisture or grit.
Indeed, at $22.59, it may be the smartest phone on the planet.