The giant antenna stops it looking like an average dumb-phone, but put up nearly anywhere in the world and thanks to a network of geostationary satellites you will be able to make a call without fear of the satellite moving out of position. The phone is built for adventure with IP65 compliance, a reflective screen with Gorilla glass, a dedicated location sharing button (texting your location as a GPS text to an interested follower), and an SOS button. Together and you have the recipe for a dumb-phone like tech best suited to keeping in contact from remote locations, which is just what the IsatPhone 2 does. Physics, however, does give satellites one huge advantage: the infrastructure is just a few satellites able to see most of the earth’s surface. Because of the limited bandwidth, this technology hasn’t embraced data transfer with the same enthusiasm as cellular. One kind of phone which ought to appear in this list is one of the best satellite phones. Dumb may be the opposite of smart, but what we really mean here are phones which are relatively inexpensive, can handle basic communications, may also include a camera and music player, can be relatively robust, and, in all likelihood, only need charging once a week. On the other side of the coin the name ‘dumb phone’ very much does the devices it encompasses a disservice. They’re also potentially problematic if you’re paying your employee’s bills. In exchange for that, they’re expensive, have a short battery and shelf life, and are relatively delicate.
The descendants of the iPhone are good at multitasking, handling simple computing tasks and providing us media on the move (social and traditional). Now, though, times have changed the success of the best smartphones is assured, so rather than eliminating the last memories of other kinds of handset, it’s perhaps worth choosing the best phone for the job. Ever since Steve Jobs introduced his ‘internet communicator’ to the world in 2007, the traditional mobile phone has been taking a kicking.