My new mobile is lumbered with a bewildering array of unnecessary features aimed at idiots | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited

(((Hey, now that's product design criticism!)))

Link: My new mobile is lumbered with a bewildering array of unnecessary features aimed at idiots | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited.

It starts gently - a pinch of annoyance here, an inconvenience there - but before long the steady drip, drip, drip of minor frustrations begins to affect your quality of life, like a mouth ulcer, or a stone in your boot, or the lingering memory of love gone sour.

The menu system is a confusing mangle of branching dead ends. It has touch-sensitive buttons that either refuse to work, or leap into action if you breathe on them. One such button also terminates calls, so it is easy to cut people off merely by holding the phone against your ear to hear them. It has no apparent "silent" mode, and when you set it to vibrate, it buzzes like a hornet in a matchbox.....