ok. simple tasks are always the hardest… the crappy panasonic cordless home phone is once again out (mind you i’ve gone through a half dozen cordless phones) yet I have 2 old corded phones (a beautiful beige one that i picked up from an estate-sale and a grey ericofon from my mom) both of them perhaps made in the 60’s and they still work. I really despise this junk culture we live in where nothing is made to last over 2 years. anyhow i’m having a hard time looking for a phone as the old ones i have are impossible to dial (rotary dial) and its hard not to puke while you look at all the designs from vtech to star trek to jacob jensen.

so i thought i’ll post the best of the crap for anyone else on the search. please do let me know if there are others i missed. now i’m sure you’re wondering, who has a home phone anymore? we’ll talk about that when the brain cancer records are released on cell phones in due time. cigarettes anyone?

so a natural attraction was to a new version of my moms grey ericofon that sat next to her bed but with actual push buttons and US plug. scandiphone‘s reissue is based on the classic ericsson ericofon ‘cobra’ (as it was known in the days).

it is an upright phone that was introduced in europe in the mid 1950s. smaller and lighter than anything available at the time, its unusual one piece design rocked the house (back then). the push button version was introduced in 1967 (although not to my mom apparently). in 1973 the phone was selected to be part of the MOMA collection, as a piece of good design in the 20th century but unfortunately for now, it’s found in every 2 cent NY hotel that wants to be cool, thus ruining my memory of it to some extend… not so perfect. this phone is corded. Approx $60

then there is the skype enabled motorola D851 Motolivn range that includes a special power-saving mode for environmentally-aware mouths. the D851 actually has white on white buttons so a bit cleaner than the D801 pictured above. they have a built-in speakerphone, and up to ten-hours of talk time (100-hours in standby) and as mentioned the D851 model comes skype-enabled for those interested, but the best part of it is the white shell. i still hate the blue screen and the shape however. approx $70 (seems like the best of the batch choice since it can handle skype but it seems unavailable in the US as far as my search has gone)

last its the premium S-802 which is a DECT 6.0 and the latest for 2009 from motorola. its key feature is the blue tooth capability. nicest part of this phone, making it on this blog, is the black screen but otherwise ordinary. i know its not much, but if you look its almost impossible to avoid that horrible blue, orange or gray back lite screen on most phones. ok but still not perfect. approx $80

still searching. by dd