Smart phone detox: John's Phone (Business version) review

I used this phone for about two years, and it solved a major issue for me. It was simple. I used to like to drink on the weekends, and this led to the occasional drunk text to a former female friend. She didn't mind the texting when we were going steady, but when I couldn't seem to stop even years after she had unceremoniously dumped me, she laid down the law. "Stop, or else."

I knew I liked to drink every Saturday at a local bar. I'd walk there at 9:45 am and the side door would open at 10:00 to let in a crew of about five or six of us to watch English Premier League games.

Now, at this point (I was 28 years old) I had stopped drinking on weekends and at night, I essentially only drank on Saturdays, and during the English Premier League season. Still, I needed to avoid the "or else." John's Phone solved this problem for me.

The phone does not handle SMS. I believe any incoming SMS may be stored on the SIM latently, but outgoing texts are more or less impossible without the help of say, a computer and some serious hacking skills. The phone book is hand-written just like the old days when men carried a "little black book" of numbers they might have collected from strange women.

This phone's speaker is essentially a copper penny wired up to vibrate with low-fidelity. What's sort of amusing is the headset, which I did use somewhat often. I used to call into the caller-line for the Howard Stern show every morning. I'd often be put on hold, for the full duration of the show. You listen in as you wait to potentially get on the air, and I'd do this, through my John's Phone while I walked around the city by myself.

I'd probably still be using this phone, but AT&T shut down 3G service entirely and I had too much into my number to switch to T-Mobile in order to just preserve the usage of this device. In order to solve my other issue? I quit drinking entirely. No more issues, but hey, I'm still waiting for the John's Phone 4G.