Alcatel 3026X - Mobile Phone Metallic Grey

Good phone for my parents, not too complicated, works well, looks good, clamshell design helps to protect screen from knocks, comes with a separate charging cradle so you don’t have to mess about putting a small lead into a small socket, which is good for elderly, good phone at a good price.

Why is "basic" so hard to do these days? My lovely old Nokia 2720 was ideal for making calls, sending and receiving texts, marking reminders on the calendar and also as an alarm clock and occasional timer — which is absolutely all I would ever want from a phone. Easily configured with my own selection of customised ringtones, it was as discreet as it was indispensable and it stood me in good stead for more than ten years of reliable use until it gave up the ghost one night last week. So I got this. Alcatel has some connection with the Nokia brand so I thought it might be an improvement on the same. Unfortunately, the 3026x was designed by an "Accessibility" apparatchik* with very set ideas on the impaired functionality of "seniors". There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the big SOS button on the back or the "SOS Assistance" and "Health Assistant" sections of the menu but there is every reason to complain of the over-simplified and deeply unhelpful lack of configuration options. Indeed, I have a strong impression that this is something the busy apparatchik would stick in the hand of their Agèd P more so to make themselves feel better as they drive away from the care home than for any deep concern about said P's use of it. The ringtones are disgustingly loud playtime jingles that will surely incite annoyance, indeed anger, from anyone in the vicinity including myself. Hoping to fix this, I managed to set up the bluetooth connection with my PC, even selected a folder for shared files under "Audio", and imported my own selection of mp3 files to use instead. But the files are dumped elsewhere on the phone and it is hit or miss if I can find them because they are sometimes visible, often not — whichever, I cannot use them. Checking the time in a moment of broken sleep, the screen is a glaringly bright disaster, even on the lowest setting. Very confusingly some Edit menus offer cut and copy but no paste option while others simply provide the properties of the selected element. There are no options to move or copy appointments on the calendar. Perhaps most annoyingly, there is no option to change typed text from the double-spaced presentation for the partially blind — this is actually difficult to read when your eyesight is not impaired. There is no manual. Yes, there is a fat booklet with thirteen pages of "Safety and warranty information" in a host of languages, a fold-out "Quick start guide" — a very basic diagram with a few lines about setting up the "SOS" feature — and a scrap of paper about the charger but nothing else. Unfortunately I must make do with this *superficially* well-meaning piece of junk for the time being but it will be unceremoniously dashed off the wall and broken to smithereens when I find something that is functional, configurable and discreet — if any such thing is even made nowadays. * Those "helpful" souls we find everywhere these days — the kind who are in fact anything but helpful although it is more often than not hard to say exactly why.

I purchased this to use while out hillwalking and cycling rather than risking loosing or damaging my much more expensive phone. So far its working very well once I got used to the old fashioned keyboard again. Its a very small and light phone so it fits in your pocket very easily. Battery life is very good compared to most modern phones only needing a charge after about a week of occasion use. If it broke tomorrow I would definitely replace it with the same model or something very close to it.

Perfect easy to use phone for my elderly father.

Everything about it

I had an alcatel flip phone which was excellent, this one is awful and not worth the money. The manufacturers have tried to make it too simple and now it is NOT user friendly. I am 78years old but do not have dementia! There are no way to create shortcuts and everything takes so long even to just send texts! So would definitely not recommend that you do not waste your money on this very very basic phone.