I'm thinking I may have to get a smart phone

I'm not very good at reading the destructions tha come with stuff, I rarely understand them and they always seem to want you to do stuff like facebook as a first option.

I'll see where we get to with it all, I don't know when the kids are coming down and if they'll be here long enough to show me what to do. One of the probem I have is certain types of information get transfered straight to my long term memory without ever staying in my short term memory, so there are no synaptic links, therefore although I know I've done C&P loads of times, I still can't remember how to do it and every time is like the first, repition dosen't seem to help either, much to the frustration of everyone around me, they rarely seem to think it's frustrating for me and htat I'm not doing it on purpose.

Does anything come with destructions these days? Everything's supposed to be intuitive, which it might be if you've had every model since the begining which I didn't because of living somewhere with no signal for 9 years, right through the time smart phones were coming out.

Forgot to mention, the Motorolas don't come with a user guide (just a little quick start guide), but you can download a very extensive printable PDF manual from their website.

I have a cheap Motorola g06 which I got last year (£70) as well as a Sony Xperia which I got second hand.

The Motorola and Sony ones just tend to come with "stock" Android, with no "rubbish" added in, so they are quite easy to get started with. You will have to take some time to set them up and learn how to operate them as it may not be obvious if you are not familiar with it.

e.g. - 

To make a phone call, you have to press the phone button, then press the keypad button, before you can dial.

They will try and get you to set up a finger print or PIN number which it will ask for every time you press the button to wake it up. You may want to do this for security, but if not, you can switch it off and then its much less hassle.

There is some odd combination of buttons you have to press to switch the phone off, but you can change this so its just a case of "hold down the big button on the side for a few seconds".

You can change things like the font size, colour scheme, ring tone, etc, to suit your preferences.

With Android you can get apps from where-ever you like (with Apple you are forced to use their App Store). I use F-Droid, which is mostly open source software which does what it says on the tin and doesn't require you to sign your life away to Google in order to use it.

The Motorola g06 is very low end hardware wise, but I just have it set up as a telephone, music player and web browser, and it does these very well. The sound quality on phone calls is very good. If you switch off mobile data and close any apps, and just leave it switched on but not doing anything, the battery will last well over two weeks.

I've found the key really is to set them up in a way that you find usable, then to not get overwhelmed by apps. e.g. If you just want it as a music player, its probably no good having it full of supermarket apps, taxi apps, delivery apps and goodness knows what else. Just stick to what you need.

I have an android and a lot of things I learnt by trial and error, or looking at the dots for options. The lack of any instruction booklet is frustrating. One thing I have learnt with a smart phone is not to hover my finger near the screen, as it can do things you didn't ask it to. 

If you want an iPhone Argos do them second hand with guarantees. My son has one and has not had problems.

I personally find iPhones easier to use, your idea of getting your son and daughter in law to help is a very good one. I use an older iPhone with a plus size screen, it just makes it easier to see the screen, the keyboard being bigger helps as my motor skills are poor. 

Okay using your phone as a frisbee sounds like fun…I’ve never had the urge myself to indulge but hey if you feel the need to when the time comes go for it.

It sounds like you are in capable hands and around people who want to help you make the right choice.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the android/apple question, either way you’re definitely not going to regret buying one.

Just take bite sized chunks when you get it, don’t try to learn everything at once.

CEX is a company that sell second hand tech you get a 5 year warranty with phones too. Most towns have one in the north and they have an online shop too. In my experience they are a good company.

I am thinking that you probably have WiFi Broadband. If the smart phone would remain in your house and you aren’t going to use it for calls, you could connect it to your broadband rather than connecting to a mobile network. You can choose not to sync your phone with other devices, there would be an option to turn it off. 

TheCatWoman said:

But I'm afraid I'd forget how to use the different apps, passwords etc

One way around this may be to keep a notebook and write down each press, click, swipe and other finger actions and it corresponding place on your phone screen that somebody may instruct you to do. If your instructor tells you to “Go to the App Store” for instance, you could write down something like “Find app with ‘off set A shape’ on top right hand corner of home screen”. This can be done for each action that you need to do.

I used to write down all my passwords and disguised them in address books. Now I use a ‘password manager’ which is an app that comes with the phone and automatically inputs the password for me. The app uses facial recognition to do this. 

Regular repetition makes remembering easier for most people.  If you don’t want to do that you would have your notes to fall back on. 

If you aren’t going to use a smart phone for calls, you could consider a Tablet instead. Most work just like a smart phone and the bigger screen might be helpful. 

Newer smart phones have AI embedded into the functionality. It is easy to find and you can either ask it something with your voice, type something or cut and paste text from elsewhere. If you don’t want it you can turn it off. It could be very useful once you get used to it. 

The iPhones and probably other smart phones have a straightforward search space where you can ask the phone where to find an app or how to turn down the volume, brighten the screen etc.

I don't know what CEX is and I'd have to have some idea of how to use the handset before being able to use chatgp or something. It dosen't feel like niggles, but an epic everest style climb. I couldn't set up my doro dumb phone by myself, when you put contact details in and press save it dosen't tell me if I'm saving to the phone or the sim card, I didn't even know this was a thing until some numpty in a phone shop lost all my contacts as well as my credit, how is anyone supposed to know this stuff?

I talked to my daughter-in-law and she and my son are going to discuss ways to help me, choosing a handset etc, but the first thing I had to do was to tell her to stop telling me that I ABOLUTELY shouldn't get and apple, and I should ABSOLUTELY have an android, I told her that one of the problems is that some people really get on with one and not the other and who should I listen too, and that I feel like I'm sat inbetween two loud hailers both shouting opposing things at me that shound very similar.

I'm starting to get the colleywobbles again about the whole thing now and getting competing advice isn't helping and if I do get one it'll probably end up being frisbee'd.

I have always been a die hard One Plus android user, usually I’d have my sons cast offs and the when he left home I’d purchase them from CEX.

After seeing how much easier other students at college with iPhones found scanning, uploading and sharing information, I decided to buy a iPhone 14 from CEX. 

This is the first phone I have set up on my own, that tells you how straightforward it is because I am definitely not tech savvy.

I used the phone without a sim for a week to get used to things and whenever I got stuck ChatGPT helped tremendously.

I explained I had autism and I needed simple instructions and it worked.

I don’t think you’ll regret getting a smart phone once you overcome some possible initial niggles.

Thanks folks, my nearest support people are in Manchester so not so easy to reach if something goes wrong.

I wondered about having a smart phone just for banking apps, mine and Mums as all our banks are shutting down and those that remain don't seem to do anything. It wouldn't leave the house, we'd continue to use our old phone for normal stuff. But I'm afraid I'd forget how to use the different apps, passwords etc, Mum can't use the doro clam shell stupid phone we've got now, so her money would be safe, mostly from her.

We have a landline if people need us and mobiles aren't working, I think most people would just assume that I was somewhere with no signal if they couldn't get hold of me, mind you the signal in Manchester's pretty bad too.

I don't want something that's going to sync up or try and sync up with every other device in the house, I think that was what went wrong a few weeks ago when nearly all my stuff disapeared.

This may or may not be useful… 

I am somewhat competent at IT but probably slightly below average for someone from the UK of my age (mid 40s) - mainly because I am unmotivated to learn because it doesn’t catch my interest to learn more about IT. I need it a bit for work but mostly my job is person rather than computer based. 

Typically I just want to get the thing I need to done without too much flapping around.

I used to use android phones and computers but I have switched everything over to apple gradually because when I got my first apple devise I felt it was easier to use. If there was something I didn’t know how to do, it felt maybe 40% easier to work out how to do it myself  in apple devises as opposed to android. 

With PCs and android smart phones I realise I always had this feeling there were things lurking in the background that I didn’t understand. Of course there are, by design, lots of things lurking in Apple devises and any computer that I don’t understand, in the hardware and the software - but something about the Apple user interface makes me blissfully unaware of this  - like a really good show at the theatre where you never notice the light effects but still they enrich your experience of the play without you thinking about it -  this never happens to me, I constantly notice the lights moving and changing - but apple devises for me are like a really good theatre show I can watch with the illusion it’s seamless and effortlessly functional. But I suppose other people’s experiences will vary considerably. 

I may be remembering wrong and perhaps they have changed but I feel like android phones had 100s of menus of settings and options that I felt may need attention and learning about but which I didn’t have the energy to learn about and they were not ordered intuitively for me. I don’t have that feeling anymore, with Apple, that there is something “lurking”. 

The advise on the apple website (you can search for a thing you want to do on apple phone) is, I find, easy to use. I also sometimes take my phone or computer to the Apple Store and the staff there are various levels of overjoyed and delighted to be asked to help. Having said that it is a bit of a cult or something…. But I am a signed up Apple cult member I’m afraid. 

Disclaimer; No AI was used in any capacity in the writing of this post. Furthermore no humans (or AI) were harmed or exploited in the construction of this post. Please excuse grammar and readability errors as I am not a massive data glob. 

P.S. I’m working on a new email footer and disclaimer to denote that I don’t use AI - just trying it out here …. Ho ho 

That's good advice from Cinnabar_wing  as a family member can guide you click by click if you have the same device.

Do you know anyone else in real life with a smart phone? The best advice is getting something that someone can help you with -if family have apple phones, or android, get the same. 

I think for you, it's not so much getting the best of anything, but the fact it works like theirs. Nothing worse than family trying to call you and it not working as you have a completely different system!

(Or if people here will be your tech support on how to use it, go with that!)

I would be very happy to give you any help I can but I’m out of touch with smartphones other than Apple’s iPhone. If you decided on an iPhone I would be happy to help. I would have to ask you to be gentle with me too though.

iPhone’s are more ‘intuitive’ (simpler and more straightforward) than other types of smartphone. They are considered more secure from malicious attacks and they continue to update old old iPhones for longer than some other types.

I’m on my way out now but I can suggest some things for you to consider and reject/accept tomorrow if it would help. Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than I will help in the meantime.