A friend of mine ditched her old iPhone 4 and got a basic prepaid flip phone. It meets her needs except of course for texting. You have to do the old ‘letters-on a-phone dial’ multiple key presses to compose text. It does have predictive text, but I was wondering if there’s a cheap small portable keyboard that she could use with it.
It has Bluetooth so I would assume that would be the only way it could connect. I’ve asked about a couple units on Amazon and the best the sellers have given me is a soft *‘probably, maybe’ *that it might work with a non-smart feature phone. I’m not even sure what exact model phone it is, just a basic, new, Samsung flip phone. She has unlimited data & text (email and a useless browser) and like I siad it has Bluetooth, but is there a particular version of Bluetooth that it would need to support a wireless keyboard?
Obviously it needs to be cheap ($30 or less) as the phone itself was only $10. Any experience in making something like this work?
I went through this same line of thought with my Motorola flip phone about a year ago. It was was a nice, good quality phone with bluetooth. Bought a keyboard for it and quickly discovered the phone would not connect to it. A friend encouraged me to consider getting a smart phone since I was doing more texting. Shopping around, I found totalwireless.com offering unlimited talk and text for $25/month. (Actually costs me $26.29/month with autopay.) They sell a small smart phone- the LG Optimus Fuel for $30. This operates on the Verizon network, so service is great. If you want internet with that, it’s another $10/month. The LG has a 3.5" screen, so finger typing is a bit tight, but works fine with a stylus. Much easier than fussing with a flip phone. And my bluetooth keyboard does connect easily, but the screen keys are so easy to use, I have not been using the bluetooth board. Want a larger phone? They have those too at moderate prices. I didn’t sign up for internet service with my phone, but I have connected a few times with my wifi to install an app. Sorry if I’m coming across like a salesman, but I like this phone and service a lot more than the old Moto flip. So that is my recommendation.
If you do a search for “feature phone with qwerty keyboard” you’ll get lots of cheap hits. I would think she’d be a lot better off with one of those than trying to use a separate keyboard anywhere but home.