Monday, May 23, 2016

Ergonomic Fail. My Cell Phone

It's extremely small, it's black, which makes it hard to see.  Set it down somewhere and you cannot find it.  Inoffensive computer casework beige would be easier to see.  And I would be happy to have one a tad bigger if it held a bigger battery. 
  Control of this miniature wonder comes from stroking the touch pad with your finger.  The poor thing sports just two real physical buttons.  One button is the "wake up" button.  Press it and the phone comes to life, touch screen lights up. Press it again and all sorts of weird stuff happens, including missing my incoming call.  The other button adjusts the loudness of the ring. 
  Should phone ring in my shirt pocket, I'm bound to press one or both real buttons while fishing phone out of my pocket.  Which means ring loudness randomly changes from max to zero, and the incoming call gets lost.
   For my simple needs, the ring loudness might as well be another "app" on the touch screen menus, I'm less likely to screw up the ring settings by just handling the phone.  The wake up button ought to be a slide switch, so you cannot press it by accident. 
  My other gripe, the phone has TWO keypads, a numeric pad like a standard desk phone, and a qwerty keyboard.  So, entering a new contact, it asks for contact name.  And shows the telephone keypad.  It takes four or five finger strikes to find the qwerty keyboard. 
   This is a lower end Trak Phone, no monthly contract.  God help us from the smarter phones.

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