Monochrome phone with text messages sorted by person?

June 25, 2015 10:41 AM

Does there exist a monochrome phone (one whose display gets clearer the brighter the sun gets) which can/does organize texts by person and/or conversation? I'd also be hoping for that other standard feature of monochrome phones, which is a couple of weeks between recharges.
posted by clawsoon to Technology (11 answers total)

You might find the keyword "transflective" useful, but then again maybe not because nobody seems to be putting transflective displays in modern devices, apparently for marketing reasons. (previously)
posted by contraption at 11:04 AM on June 25, 2015

The YotaPhone has a second e-ink screen, and if you don't use the regular screen has a stated battery life of 50-60 hours.
posted by Huck500 at 11:06 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

You can do this with an iPhone:
1. Settings > General > Accessibility:
2. Turn on "Grayscale"
3. Chose "Invert colors" for white on black

Brightness contol:
1. Settings > Display & Brightness
2. Auto

This is also the section where you can change the text size ;-)
posted by Mac-Expert at 11:17 AM on June 25, 2015

Sadly, there is no way way to change an iPhone's backlit LCD display into a transflective display via software (though if anybody could figure out how to do that it'd probably be Apple.) An iPhone display set to grayscale mode will have the same sunlight/battery issues as one in color mode.
posted by contraption at 11:27 AM on June 25, 2015

Response by poster: Note: I'm also open to older phones that I could pick up on Ebay, etc. I definitely *don't* want a full-on modern smartphone. In contraption's previously, someone mentions that Nokia Symbian phones probably had transflective displays; anything else along those lines?
posted by clawsoon at 11:33 AM on June 25, 2015

If you just want a cellphone for emergencies that has a long battery standby time. Look into the Nokia 215. It claims to have a 29 day standby time. Talk time is 20 hours. So the moment you make a call you will loose standby time fast! Also temperature and age of the battery will effect the battery life.

If you truly want a phone for an emergency kit you might want to look into the SpareOne.. If you stick a Lithium battery in this phone it will have a shelf life of 15 years!
posted by Mac-Expert at 11:34 AM on June 25, 2015

My iPhone 5c certainly gets brighter/darker on its own while I walk in and out of buildings into sunshine or into shade. It made me think my phone was broken the first few times it did it. If you have the bottom menu pulled up, you can actually see the brightness slider move on its own while it is doing this.

My wife has had her text messages sorted by person before on her iPhone 5c, but it was an accident and I am not sure how she did it.
posted by TinWhistle at 11:35 AM on June 25, 2015

Response by poster: If you just want a cellphone for emergencies that has a long battery standby time...

No, I want it for regular texting.
posted by clawsoon at 1:07 PM on June 25, 2015

Response by poster: I think the other keyword I'm looking for is "threaded text messaging". That's what I mean by my rather awkward description of the text messaging feature I'm looking for..
posted by clawsoon at 1:18 PM on June 25, 2015

According to this UK forum the Nokia 3310 series is the phone for you (the 3360 seems to be the US version.) Beware of old crappy batteries.
posted by contraption at 2:05 PM on June 25, 2015

Response by poster: Heh, I just saw that, too. I have realized that I also want big text message memory capacity - I mostly want threaded texting so that I can find old messages from a particular person more easily. ("Did they already tell me the time for that event? ...damn, don't want to text them again, don't want to step back through the 5000+ messages on my phone...")

So that rules out the 3310. :-)
posted by clawsoon at 2:25 PM on June 25, 2015