When phones with fewer features are a good deal

January 12, 6:45 PMGadgets ExaminerDan Appleman

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The Doro 330gsm

Every day we read about new phones with remarkable new features. There are games, videos, music, GPS, Internet, Email, contact management… the list goes on. In fact, the one feature that is barely discussed anymore is a phones ability to actually make and receive calls.

For many of us, that feature is taken for granted, but there are many people for whom a phone is actually a phone, and that’s all they really want it to be. And while there are many seniors and baby-boomers who love technology, there are also many for whom all of those extra features are distractions – sometimes so distracting they make the phone completely unusable. It wouldn’t hurt if the numbers and letters on the phone display were a lot larger as well.

Jitterbug has done booming business in the U.S. marketing phones to senior citizens – and they are great phones, but with the emphasis on operator assistance, perhaps a bit too simple for some.

Enter Doro with its 330gsm and 326igsm phones featured this week at CES. With extra large buttons, large display screens and speakerphones, these phones are a great middle ground. They handle voice and texting easily and that’s about it. The 330gsm has a speakerphone and FM radio (of all things) and a built in flashlight.

With Jitterbug, operators are available 24x7 to help place calls, update phone lists, and so on. The Doro phones don’t include the hand holding, but do run on the AT&T or T-Mobile networks using standard SIM cards.