Down The Rabbit Hole: Part III - Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions.

What does everyone want in a cell phone. Forget money, size, tradeoffs and marketing. What are those features that would represent the base of a good phone. Well, I don't know about everyone, but here is my pick.

1. Large buttons - both numeric and functional. Though it is true that we dial less since the invention of a phone book, we still type lots of messages, hence large usable keys are important. I personally prefer two separate buttons, for calling and and for hanging up. There should be no unnecessary buttons on the phone, like connect to the internet button or something like that. Buttons should be strictly rectangular and should fit an average human finger tip. In my opinion, one dimensional navigation is more than enough, but if you really have to use two dimension, the Nokia five way selection button is the best existing solution.

2. Phone book, with synchronization, backup and search. You have a phone right? If it would diasppear today, how many numbers would you loose? If you answer is larger then zero, then your phone is not good enough. We have bluetooth, we have cellular data connection, how hard could it be to create a decent backup with all that stuff. Another question. Do you have to remember whether your friend John Howard appears as John Howard or as Howard John? If you do, then your phone book does not have a decent search and amazingly most Nokia phones do not have this simple feature.

3. SMS, with T9, storage and search. People are real nasty, when it gets to devices. They assume that devices should make their life easier, and they also get used to good things very quickly. Which is why, no one would ever delete an SMS message from his cell phone until the phone explicitly asks the user to do so. All well and good, but the modern phones have lots of memory and they do not complain even when the number of SMS messages on the device gets to thousands. What they start to do instead is misbehave. One of my friends, had a Nokia E65 which would take more than 30 seconds to open an SMS under this scenario.

4. Battery, battery, battery - if I have to charge my phone more then twice a week, you failed. Wait, but what if I am talking all the time? OK, let's not talk about the absolute time, but rather about the features that would help me preserve it. Don't give me a screen saver, just shut the screen at the first hint of idle time and during phone calls. Battery life is so important in a phone that I would choose it over the cameras, music players and fancy 3G features.

5. One normal ringtone, with vibration option and the ability to instantly turn it off - you would be surprised how difficult it is sometimes to pick up a decent ringtone, because as much as I love Beethoven, putting his sonata on my phone is out of question.

6. Good reception and great audio quality - as one would put it, what good is a phone if you are unable to speak?

Don't get me wrong, this is not the complete list, but this is the minmum. Don't sell a phone that does not have even one of these. Please.

Oh, and if you have other minimum requirements, you think everyone should want, well, that's what the comments are for.