Review: new Vodafone Simply VS4 handset

Vodafone Pay As You Talk customers are feeling the love at the moment. Not only has Vodafone launched a new Free Weekends tariff (spend £5 during the week and you get free weekend calls, £2.50 and they’ll give you free texts), but this month sees the launch of a  new Vodafone Simply phone – the VS4.

Whilst Simply phones aren’t going to get the average tech-lover’s heart pumping, you can’t deny that they do their job well. Designed with my mother in mind, they are incredibly simple (see what they did?) to use. The interface of this and the previous models is very similar, so as not to scare off any upgrading. The home screen tells you the basics, including the battery life (Good), the signal strength (Good) and your own number (I’ll keep that one to myself).

As far as additional features are concerned, unsurprisingly, it’s been stripped down to the bare minimum – no camera, no screen changing, no MMS (although you can receive them), nothing you’d now expect in standard in most phones. Which is why it does so well, in it’s own way.  It’s cheap at £60 on PAYT, and although originally aimed at the older market (the concept was launched with Richard and Judy) Vodafone must also be seeing a number of concerned parents buying them for their offspring.

The Simply design line has seen a subtle nod to changing phone fashions, whilst keeping to its original brief. It started as a chunky candy bar, which was apparently designed through focus group consultation about the perfect size of a phone, in relation to the average woman’s handbag.  Then came the VS3, which was a flip phone. Finally, the VS4, launched this month, is the slimmest of the handsets so far. At just 15mm deep, it comes at a time when phone manufacturers are all desperately competing to shed their puppy fat.