While traveling, if you need a pricy phone that browses the internet, takes pictures, breaks easily, and is a target for theft, this is not the review for you. If, on the other hand, you want an inexpensive, durable telephone that works well in any Asian country, the Nokia 1280 telephone is your best pal. At a price point of $20-$30 USD (and you can find good used ones at a fraction of that price), no one will ever steal it from you, either, which is not the case with tri or quad band phones.

This phone is durable. Here at WoWasis, we’ve dropped it more than a few times, with nary a problem. The audio is crystal clear, important for noisy urban areas. Although it’s ancient by today’s standards, it’s still sold everywhere. It travels well, too. Just slap a SIM card inside when you visit a new country, and you’re in business (check out our post on using mobile phones in Bangkok for more info on how all this stuff works).

The Nokia 1280 is actually a replacement for the durable Nokia 1112, which was released in 2006. The software is bulletproof. With graphical icons and large font sizes the Nokia 1280 is an easy to use mobile phone that aims at first-time mobile phone users. As a dual-band device it operates on GSM-900/1800 networks, which includes most of Asia, Europe, and Africa, but not in the Americas (for more on differnces between dual, tri, and quad band phones and supported frequencies, see the note at the bottom of this post). The Nokia 1280 has a 96 x 68 pixels resolution monochrome display with white backlighting and an integrated handsfree speaker. The cell phone has built in utilities, such as a calculator and a stopwatch and it supports polyphonic ringtones. Beside other basic features like SMS and picture messaging it has a speaking clock and alarm. Its internal memory is 4 MB in size, enabling it to hold up 200 phonebook entries. The battery powers the phone for up to over 5 hours talk time, or up to 15 days if left in stand-by mode.”

Lost and stolen phones are a way of life for the traveler these days (we recommend a cheap snap-off lanyard that you can loop around your belt, which will keep your phone from accidentally falling out of your pants pocket). We left our Nokia 1280 in a taxi one day, called the number an hour later, and our driver returned it. I can’t guarantee that would have happened if our phone hadn’t been a cheapy. Durable phones are a necessity. A friend’s phone slid off a nightstand onto a hotel rug, and the screen broke in half. We’ve dropped our 1280 off bigger heights, and it’s taken a sound beating, generally speaking, as we travel. If you need a sturdy, expensive phone in Asia that will humbly keep on working, the Nokia 1280 is for you.

Additional note on bands, frequencies, and countries. The folks at chankaudaya have an excellent post on the subject. Here’s what they say:

Different Frequency Bands used in different continents of the world.