Be Excellent To Each Other

So, it is time for my Mum to get a new mobile telephone, and it's my job to pick one for her.

Now, this task is a lot harder than it might be, because she has some fairly specific requirements. I've been looking around for a long time, but can't really find anything that fits the bill.

The main one is that she needs to be able to hold it in either hand. She has polands syndrome (like Jeremy Beadle), and we've tried a few phones for her to hold, and the easiest are ones that are around 52.5 - 58mm wide, or even better if they have a thing at the top that you can attach a lanyard to.

She wants a touch screen smart phone. Ideally running android, but she's open to others.

She wants it to have a miniUSB port, and charge off it.

3.5mm jack for audio.

Camera quality isn't too important.

Needs to have wifi.

She'll be doing lots of web browsing on it, so needs to come with (or be able to install) a decent browser. Qwerty would be nice, but only if it is a good qwerty.

Big, decent screen, and a good touch screen.

Most importantly, it needs to be available on o2.

So, any suggestions.

And no, she doesn't want an iPhone, even if it wasn't too big.

the nokia 5800 fulfils most of those

other than the charging by usb..

Yeah, that's what I have, and I have that in the back of my mind as a back option, but it's pretty old in the tooth now, and I was sure that there would be something better out there by now.

Mini N97?

I don't think she'd really like a Symbian OS phone.

Shame because I know a number of "older" people who love them. In fact a friend of mine has given one to his elderly parents who have proclaimed its the easiest to use mobile phone they've ever had. They love the big on screen buttons and the ease of use apparently.

would the touchscreen blackberry do the trick?

Vodafone exclusive.

I'm not sure any phone fits those requirements. Most (all?) Android phones don't have a 3.5mm earphone socket.
Although - what about the Palm Pre?

Androids don't have a 3.5mm headphone socket? Wow.. I didn't know that. That's interesting.

Just out of interest, what is it about Poland's Syndrome that requires those specific mobile phone requirements?

Oh, I meant to give more details. It's caused when one side of the body doesn't get enough oxygen as a fetus. Pretty damn rare, and there isn't any specific known causes (ie it's not genetic, or caused by any particular environmental factor).

One of the major symptoms is having one arm/hand (my mum's left) shorter and smaller, and with webbed fingers. She actually had 5 fingers, three which are webbed, one without a nail, and one longer one instead of a thumb, but at a young age she had pioneering surgery, where they removed her longer finger, and stuck it back on so she had an opposable digit, which gave her much greater use of her hand.

So she needs a phone that she can hold in that hand, so that she can still open doors, write and other stuff when on the phone.

There are some android phones with a 3.5 jack for sure.

I will think about the palm pre. Does anyone know if there is a way to attach a lanyard to it?

Superglue.

HTC phones don't. Apple have some sort of patent on phones with headphone sockets that can control the phone as well.

I'm just comparing the OP to the post I would be making if I were detailing the list of MY mum's mobile phone requirements and cringing with internal shame.

I thought patents only lasted 5 years.. to allow the spread of technology

Err, 20 years, isn't it?

I think that got changed in 1995... but can't find any more info.

http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en

She's become such a geek over the last 12 months or so. She asked me if I would go to PAX Boston with her.

Do not go near this, it's a horrific device.

I'd say one of the HTC Androids was definitely the way forward. Is the 3.5mm port definitely a dealbreaker? There are adapters available for the HTC ones, I'm pretty sure.

Oh yeah, course. They come with an adaptor.