Binatone M250 Big Button GSM Phone - Black

I bought this phone for my Dad, who is about to turn 83 this week and as such has struggled with mobile phones in the past. He only wants a mobile phone to take with him if he is driving anywhere in case of emergency, so has no need for any bells or whistles - in fact he doesn't even want or need to be able to text or take photos, just have the ability to b able to call someone in an emergency,Enter the Binatone M250, which is perfect for his needs. It's unlocked and sim free so will work with any 2G network (please note that means IT DOES NOT WORK WITH THREE). His Orange sim went in easily and he was away.It's relatively simple to use (although he still needed me to enter the numbers into contacts for him), so the day to day operations of making a phone call was fairly simple. It's ideal for the elderly due to the large buttons, big clear display and loud ringtones.If you have an elderly relative that wants or needs a phone for piece of mind but who would struggle with even a basic cheap normal phone then this is ideal. The price was fantastic too - when I purchased this in July 2017 at the time of this review is was just under £20 from Amazon themselves, which has to be a bargain. Phones don't really come much simpler than this one. You might need to assist someone that hasn't used a mobile phone before or who has struggled in the past due to eyesight issues etc, but within a few minutes with this they'll be able to make and receive calls.

I bought my mum a smart-phone for Christmas, she has managed with it, but never really got on with it - so having seen this on Amazon I thought I'd get one for her birthday - and am I glad I did too.She loves it. I set it up for her with her Virgin SIM, after splitting multiple numbers for the same contacts and exporting the numbers from her smart phone onto the SIM, they were all there to hand as soon as I turned the phone on. I set the M1-M3 buttons for myself and my brother and sister and then set the one-touch dial for numbers 2-9 to the same as they've always been on all her phones.This phone can also accept a micro SD card which I didn't realise so I simply took the one out of her smart-phone and put it into this - all her pictures and custom ring-tones are these so she's lost nothing.The panic button is a brilliant idea (it can be disabled if not required). If turned on it needs to be pressed for three seconds to activate so accidental activations are unlikely. Once activated the phone emits a loud tone and simultaneously sends a customised short SMS to all the phone numbers (up to five of them) set-up by the user. It will also dial the first number in the list and play a default (or personalised) message when it connects. if it cannot get through it will automatically dial the next number - and so on.There are also four fully customizable tones modes, Default, Silent, Outside etc. The volume is very loud and you can set any ring-tone you like as a default long as you put it on the phone or card. You can set tones (or not) for opening, closing, docking, power on, power off. The volume - as if not loud enough - can be increased even further by pressing the button on the side - this will throw up a red triangle on the screen with a warning that it is very loud, and can be turned off the same way. I assume this is for places with loud ambient noise. The only drawback that my mother would have liked but is not an option on this phone is personalized ring-tones for individual contacts - but for this price it is not enough to lose any stars.You can even set LED options.It speaks any key-press, so the user can be sure the right number is being dialled, this works with one-touch dialling as well, and it can also be disabled.It feels wonderful in the hand, smooth to the touch but the rubbery surface allows it to not feel like it's going to slip from the hands.The buttons light up really well, so it can be used in very dim or dark conditions easily.It has a torch comprising two LED's on the top (hinge side) that are activated by pressing and holding a button on the side for two seconds, and turned off the same way.Charging is simple. Plug the USB adapter into the socket, connect the cable to it and the other end into the back of the charging dock. Plop the phone into the dock (front facing forwards) and it charges, Charging is indicated by the orange LED lighting up in the centre of the orange strip along the bottom of the phone, and completed once the LED switches off. In my mum's case I have fitted a 2-gang socket with two USB outputs built in, so she simply does not use the adapter and plugs the cable directly into the output.The other nice touch is that you can specify what the up/down/left/right buttons do from all the different functions of the phone.It has quite a few other functions which I have not tried or set up as my mum does not need them, bluetooth, media player, camera and the like. I am extremely happy I got this for her, and she is over the moon.

This was bought for my father, a man who, when it comes to technology, is a bit suspicious of anything too modern and fiddly, like a hammer, or a toaster. Needless to say, a smartphone was never going to be on the cards. This is pretty much the ideal phone for him: he can see the buttons without having to put his glasses on, it doesn't do much else but the basics of phone calls and texts, and the display is large and clear with good, loud sounds. The menus are a little clunky and unintuitive when compared to those on his (very) old Nokia, but they really were the gold standard. It is a little flimsy; the first one delivered had a damaged screen, but this was replaced very promptly. The replacement has worked well, although it tends to either sit in a jacket pocket or a car's glovebox, so it's a little hard to judge how robust it would be with less careful handling and storage. Finally, it loses marks from me for having a proprietary charger, rather than the micro-USB that are so usefully prevalent these days.

I originally bought an 'Easyfone' for my elderly mother (also on Amazon) which is anything but Easy. I struggled to use it myself, one of the worst features being a button which turned on the radio on static at full volume, with no obvious way to turn it off. Luckily the phone packed up after four months (certainly not through over-use) and I decided to try the Binatone instead.Please bear in mind I've only spent a short time setting it up for my mother, so I can't say how long it will last, however from using it for an hour or so I think it's fantastic. It's simple, straightforward and doesn't have too many whistles and bells. There's no radio or camera but it does have an SOS button and a torch. It works very similarly to a conventional Nokia phone and has clearly been well considered. I haven't needed to look at the instructions to use it, and although I've written some very simple instructions for my mother, I imagine she'll only need to look at them once to get the hang of it.The single issue I've found (which has been noted in at least one other review) is that when redialling a number by pressing the green button, it sometimes shows the saved name, sometimes only the number. This is clearly a bug, but is not the end of the world, and when weighed up against everything else, I'd definitely choose this phone over the alternatives.