TTfone Nova TT650 Big Button Flip Folding Mobile Phone - Easy and Simple to use - Pay as you go (Black, EE PAYG)

When i open the battery it was broken so the phone is not working

Arrived on time but came without dock base

Really easy to use

Good simple easy to use. Nice looking

I picked this phone out for my mother to try as a replacement for a Sony Z600 that I gave her years and years ago which for some strange reason has refused to quit, but the battery doesn’t last very long. The thing she liked about the Z600 was that it was simple, didn’t have any features and functions that she would not use, did not have a touch screen, and most importantly it was a clamshell form factor so she could be satisfied that it was closed in her handbag and she wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with a keypad lock or any messing like that.This TTfone Nova in many ways offers much of the same functionality as the old Sony. The clamshell is relatively slim but not so much as to be tricky for someone with reduced dexterity. It is fairly lightweight as well. The display is low resolution but bright enough, and usefully there are just two simple LED lights on the front outer shell that give indications as to whether there is a text message or other such notification to be read. The LEDs are bright - perhaps a bit too bright. I notice that when you charge the phone (it comes with a handy little cradle that it sits in to charge) a very bright white LED will flash slowly. It never stops flashing though, irrespective of how long you have it on charge. This can be annoying if you plan on having the phone in its cradle in plain sight.The user interface is not hugely complicated as there are very limited features, although it’s not as intuitive as one might have expected. Adjusting the Sound options for example are not in a dedicated ‘Sound’ menu, instead you have to hunt them down under Profiles.The button sizes are usefully large though, making it a doddle for mum to use when she needs to actually dial a number. Their response isn’t entirely perfect, with some button presses not always being acknowledged. On the whole though, they are fine. Call clarity is adequate.There are a couple of functions that it contains which my mum still finds completely superfluous - those being the FM radio and the MP3 player and built-in camera. The latter two would require the purchase of an SD card to make the most of it. I haven’t really explored the camera quality as it’s just not something mum is going to use.Overall, it’s a cheap and cheerful phone with a few un-required features in my opinion, considering its target audience. It could do with some refinements in the User Interface and menu system to make it more intuitive and it would be nice if the battery LED would stop flashing when it was fully charged. For a price of c. £25 (at time of review) I guess that’s probably about right for this sort of thing.

This is a value phone, so you can’t expect too much for your money. That said it does have a lot of features, it’s just that trying to get to them is a bit of a faff and I wouldn’t say it’s intuitive at all. I guess in the smart phone era, going back to the old flip phone with endless menus is quite hard. Of course the target market for this phone is the older generation, but honestly I think my Dad would be far more confused with this one due to the menu system and non intuitive action buttons. For example, to take a picture you press the number 5, to turn the volume up and down you press the # and * keys. I guess you could get used to this, but given my Dad no struggles to learn and retain new things, I think he just wouldn’t use these functions and would just use it as a basic phone. Even though I’m tech savvy some of the menus and actions flummoxed me for a while, even with the instructions!There are definitely some good points to this phone though. It’s very lightweight, it’s clam design means no accidental number calling, the light flashes on the front of the clam shell to indicate incoming calls or texts, as well as vibrating, the number pad is large, easy to press and speaks the numbers and the 3 available emergency SOS numbers are very useful. It also has a very long charge/standby so would only need charging probably once a week (depending on use) and the cradle charger is easy to use. Call clarity is also good. So if you want to use it as a basic mobile phone for an elderly relative then this may do the trick.However, if you wanted to use the full function of the phonethen it does have its limitations. Firstly the menus are LONG to get to where you want to go. A good example of this was viewing a photo that I’d taken, which took six click throughs to get to it! There is no real memory in the phone, so you will need to supplement it with an micro SD card, as after I’d taken the one picture it said the memory was full, so I couldn’t take any more. I managed to okay the FM radio OK, but you need to press 4 and 6 together to search for the stations, again just not very intuitive. The earphones did not suit my ears at all, I couldn’t get them to stay in and even if I could they didn’t seem to work as I couldn’t get the earphone jack to fit properly for the sound to come through the earphones instead of out of the phone.So a mixed experience for me. If you want to use it as a basic phone for calls and texts, as well as using the SOS function for an elderly relative then it will do the job, of using it as a spare for nights out when you don’t want to take your expensive smart phone with you. If you want to use the wider functions then you may want a different type of phone, unless you don’t mind all the menus.