My current phone has a couple of features I don’t need at all. A little red light flashes every now and then for no apparent reason. The manual doesn’t even mention the light. I have separate tones for calls, voice-mail, and text messages. I get false rings for voice mail and text messages a couple dozen times a day. Damned haunted piece of junk. 
Small as possible
Long battery life (I want it to last a week and a half, so that I still have potential talktime after a week).
Good reception.
Infra red port (for my PDA and laptop)
Couldn’t care less about anything else - I like gadgets and would certainly play with a camera (perhaps even find a real use for it occasionally) if my phone had one built-in, but I wouldn’t choose a larger, more expensive camera phone over a small free one.
I don’t like all the bells and whistles that manufacturers are cramming into new cell phones. I just need my phone to allow me to make and receive calls while I am out and about. I don’t care for all the musical ring tones, either. I like having a few distinctive patterns to choose from so I can more readily identify my phone’s ring, but I don’t want to piss off nearby bystanders by treating their ears to a few bars of the William Tell Overture or whatever every time I receive a call. Just a simple tone to let me know it’s ringing is all I really need.
As for the games and the digital cameras, well, I already have a digital camera, and if I want to bring games with me or have Internet access I’ll bring my laptop. My cell phone comes with a few little games but in nearly a year’s time I have yet to play any of them.
Gods, you think you guys have it hard? I have to support these damn phones and all their gagets. Do you know how hard it is to explain text messaging to a 95 year old?
Reception is conrtolled by the FCC. Reception is closely tied into power output and so unless they up the 0.6 WATT limit, any digital cell phone is pretty much like any other.
When I started here I bought the best phone available (the V.60) for $800. After getting tired of all the “extra features” my next phone was a $100 Samsung N370.
My next phones will be as simple as possible. I have a journada for my serious note taking and gaming playing.
I can’t imagine why a phone needs to take pictures…
I just want a cell phone to do one thing well . . . make and receive calls. I especially want the phone well engineered so that it’s easy to use the basic features I want. I shouldn’t have to read the manual every time I want to make a call.
I agree with medstar. Aren’t phones supposed to be just that, PHONES? Although if I had my way, I’d want these:
crystal-clear reception, ANYWHERE in the world.
small and light
long battery life
internal phone book interfaces with PC
#1 on my list is having good reception, anywhere I go. I hate having problems whenever I go out of town someplace. Phone companies should put reception as the #1 priority in phone-improvement.
Ooohh… cant believe I forgot to mention this. But I’d also like to have GPS capabilities.
Sign me in with the “work well as a normal telephone” contingent.
Add:
Thin/lightweight, but NOT TINY or fragile-feeling. I do not need something the size of a zippo lighter that I’ll fear breaking by squeezing too hard; neither do I want it to look like I’m packing heat under my jacket. If my 6100-series Nokia were half as thick as it is, but still 13 cm. long, it would be just lovely dimensions-wise.
No *&^%$ extendable antenna!! Fixed built-in all the way, man. Every pullout aerial I’ve handled on a cell phone has been the puniest piece of you-know-what ever put in people’s hands.
A long-lasting battery that is * removeable and interchangeable*, not embedded in the unit itself.
Intuitive, straightforward controls and switches. No obtuse iconic labels or “super keys” that can do 12 different things on the same button but you have to go thru the other 11 before you get to the one you want, or on/off buttons that can only be activated by the three-handed.
The capability to stand being dropped from a 1.5-meter height onto a solid marble surface. More than once.
If it can’t be compatible with the grid in every single darn country in the planet, ay the very least let it be compatible with ANY network that may be within effective range of where I travel in the USA. (Last December I was in Richmond and my Cingular phone was “No Service” 80% of the time) (Yes, this one’s a phone company/FCC issue, I know…)
Maybe a Palm-compatible PDA, if we want to be fancy. Otherwise a standard way to synch its phonebook to my computer’s contacts list.
I want it to say “bidoo” when it leaves a service area and “boodoo” when it enters it.
I only want to hear this bidoo/boodoo noise once in my life, and it had better be in, like, the bathroom, where I don’t need service anyway.
I want to have a signal everywhere from Texas to the Atlantic Ocean. I’m not likely to travel anywhere off the East Coast, so whether I can talk in San Francisco doesn’t keep me up at night.
I want a simple way to turn up the earpiece volume while I’m in a conversation.
Also, I want it to be set up like my current phone in the following ways: Screen is always visible, but there’s a face that flips open and closed over the keypad. When it’s closed, the keyguard is on; when you open it, the keyguard turns off. If you receive a call, you can answer it automatically by opening the flippy face, and hang up by closing it again. This is a nice, convenient setup.