Nokia C5 (image:nokia.com)
We like to reuse old technology in our house so I’m often passing on old gadgets to my wife and kids.
I recently passed on a Nokia C5 to her. She really enjoyed the phone – her previous one was a bit of a brick and I think embarrassed her a little. But I hadn’t realized quite how much she liked it until she had the chance to move onto a more compact slide phone or media phone with a touch screen.
Nokia C5 (image:nokia.com)
While I would have been wowed by the new features on those handsets, she was quite happy to stick with her existing “Candybar” style device. I was intrigued what it was that made that phone such a good fit for her.
“It just does what I need it to do, and I can use it in one hand while pushing the buggy or holding a child’s hand.”
The physical design of the device was such a good fit for her use that to move to what she called “the fiddly” slide style phone or “complicated” touch screen device was simply not worth the effort for her.
It is easy for the features of a device to override more important aspects like the physical footprint, balance and center of gravity.
It reminded me that although I enjoy the clean lines of the DS Lite and DSi (not to mention the great DSi-ware games), I still prefer the feel of the original DS in my hands. I was also reminded of how the original iPod shuffle’s chewing gum pack is still my favourite design even after four iterations from Apple.
