We look at this thing, and frankly, the term "phone" just never crosses our minds. Handsets designed specifically with children in mind typically
look nothing like traditional cellphones, but Omego's self-titled debut may just take the cake. Looking like a table coaster with an LCD display, the 83 gram device runs on T-Mobile MVNO Toucan Mobile in the UK, offering "educational games," an organizer, a 40-number phone book, an obligatory lack of numeric keypad (although Firefly
might be looking to change all that), and the obvious full suite of parental control. It runs £15 a month (about $30) on an 18-month contract plus £5 per megabyte (ouch!) over the handset's GPRS modem. Then again, what are 8 year olds consuming data for?
[Via
El Reg]
Update: PC Magazine's Sascha Segan has pointed out that this weird thing is a rebranded
Enfora TicTalk from back in the day. No wonder it looks so old school!
posted Aug 17th 2007 11:52AM
Huh. That's an Enfora TicTalk.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1863652,00.asp
Hello all,
Yes, it is a rebranded TicTalk, the company is a JV with Enfora, the website and brand has been completely redesigned for Europe.
More details at http://www.omegomobile.com/
The european market is very different to that in the US. The major concerns in Europe revolve around phone theft, kids running up high phone bills and contact by strangers.
In addition the Omego sends and receives Text messages (SMS), a must have for europe. Yes it is possible from the two keys plus rocker wheel.
GPRS data is expensive across european wireless carriers, one of the major pluses of the Omego is that the child can't access the internet.
GPRS is simply used to sync the phonebook.
Let's see how the market in the UK plays out.
Andrew White, CEO, Omegomobile.