JCB Tradesman 3 4G and WiFi Rugged Feature Phone Waterproof With Whatsapp, Hotspot, Dual-Sim and Bluetooth - Black

I should have returned this when it arrived but thought I'd get the hang of it eventually. I didn't, and have now replaced it with something which cost less but is immeasurably better. I agree with other reviewers on the very poor instructions and unintuitive interface but the phone's greatest weakness is its keyboard. The buttons simply don't work properly. Text inputs are randomly successful or unsuccessful (in the sense of registering at all) in a ratio of approximately 2-to-1. Possibly the most frustrating piece of kit I have ever bought. Avoid.

What a great product. My husband has been working outside and at heights so I bought this to save his smartphone and a good job too. He managed to drop it multiple times off the ladders and scaffolding and it didn’t flinch. He’s been up there in real downpours and the waterproofing has been tested fully along with his waterproof radio which he connected to the phones Wi-Fi hotspot to listen to his tunes. It’s even got WhatsApp so he could stay in touch and share some of the work he was doing on a video call. Easy to use, buttons big enough to use when wearing glove’s with an amazing battery life. What else can you want from a button phone? Brilliant

Difficult to navigate although seems durable enough

Very poor quality hardware, feels very cheap, charging port cover fell off after 1 use, only mini USB port not USB C. Software is unusable unless you want to only dial manually. Whatsapp app is unusable too. Do NOT buy this rubbish handset.

Due to many criminal activities being perpetuated using the cell phones is a main reason why I do not want to have a modern touch screen phone. Also I don't want the Google or other tech companies keeping its hooks on me. I saw what a pain in the ass life it cause my colleague, who, an iPhone user faced when he crossed several countries in 24 hours - from US to England, then up to Scotland, then to Shetlands. Apple thought criminals got hold of his phone whereas it was just our working life in oil exploration - travel a lot alot. He had to jum through hoops to get everything unlocked but of course he couldn't do it with his iPhone. He had to use landline or sat phone to get hold of which people at Apple in US to unlock. NO THANK YOU VERY MUCH, I STICK TO USING STUPID DUMP PHONE that I could Really Rely on in an Emergency not matter where in the world. For many years I kept using Nokia E72 from 2009 until 3G signals were turned off. I hunted for a non-Apple OS or non-Android operating system phone to no avail. Many which are not using these operating systems do not have 2-5 mega pixels camera for taking documentary photographic stills when I do accident investigations to put into reports for emailing to clients. Ones that do but do not have Hot Spot facility. This older version of Tradesman (3) and there is at least a Tradesman 4 at the time of review has almost met all my specifications except a low capacity memroy card and that the keyboard is not QWERTY but at least it is a physical keyboard. I do phone calls and text SMS messages on cell phones; everything else is done on Widows laptop which is why I needed the older 3 model for its Hot Spot because the 4 model doesn't have it. It is either that or some other function I needed to run my consultancy business that 4 doesn't have but 3 does. So if you conclude tha tI don't like this phone, well you are right, I don't. But there is no modern day Nokia E72 suited to 4G signal let alone 5G so I only chose this JCB because there is no better cell phone to suit my needs. Having got used to Nokia's Symbian operating system then from 2018 Samsung rendition of Android, I find this JCB operating system positively clunky. Several time I have has to look up the internet manual to find out how to activate / deactive certain functions. One function I really like to uninstall is WhatsApp but so far not found anything on uninstalling in the manual. Guess what ? Of course, battery life is a good number of days as I only make calls and text but so far not worked out how to set up hot spot yet so it (battery) may still turn out to be insufficient once the phoned is hooked up to the laptop. So temporarily giving it a score of 4 stars. Update 3 months on. Stupid phone. Call up the voice mail service which instructed me to "Key Star" for further options. I press the * key = didn't work. Pressed it again; still didn't work. Did JCB meant for that key to only work when inputting SMS ? Hence down grade to 2 stars due to many unintuitive ways to access settings and how to use the phone to best advantage. No I don't like the phone but there is no other "dumb" phone I could find with 4G Hot Spot and 2-5 meg stills camera. 5 Months On update. Eventually found a way to get the Star button working so as to use the voicemail options ......... first have to use the multidirectional cursor to move the highlight to Keys the the labelled star button on the bottom right would work. not a lot of good when you have gloved hands or cold fingers as that just delay things not to mention it is Counter Intuitive ! I hate this phone user interface, software, and firmware. I wish there was another dumb phone with 4G Hotspot and 5meg stills camera.

What a great little phone! It worked right out of the box. It's perfect for an easy to carry and quick to use communication device. It even has WhatsApp so I can stay connected when I need. The screen is better than I would have expected and the front and rear camera also work well! Would highly recommend for anyone looking for a simple feature phone!

Bought one Christmas for work, cheap quality for the price and forever charging the battery.

Not veryveasy to use

Es muy robusto

My grandfather likes this phone since his old one broke

Ho acquistato questo telefono per l'uso quotidiano, con l'idea di avere meno distrazioni da applicazioni e social, ma mantenendo WhatsApp per esigenze lavorative. Il telefono è ben costruito, anche se dà l'impressione di essere po' "plasticone". È piuttosto leggero e questo inizialmente fa pensare a un prodotto di bassa qualità. In realtà è molto robusto e ha la certificazione IP68, quindi è resistente anche all'acqua. Per garantire questa protezione, il coperchio del vano batteria (con batteria estraibile) è fissato con due viti; nella confezione è inclusa anche la chiavetta per svitarle. All'interno è possibile installare due SIM oppure una SIM e una microSD per espandere la memoria. Una volta acceso ci si rende conto di quanto sia semplice questo telefono. Il sistema, basato su una versione semplificata di Android e tradotto in italiano, offre solo le funzioni essenziali: chiamate, messaggi, radio, galleria, WhatsApp e un browser che è praticamente inutilizzabile. Ha una doppia fotocamera con una risoluzione piuttosto bassa, ma tutto sommato le foto sono discrete, anche se tendono quasi sempre a essere sovraesposte. Dopo aver installato gli aggiornamenti richiesti dal sistema, si può aprire WhatsApp, ed è qui che ho deciso di effettuare il reso. L'applicazione non è ottimizzata per questo telefono: per muoversi all'interno bisogna utilizzare una freccetta, controllata dai tasti che svolgono la funzione del mouse. L'esperienza è lenta e, scorrendo tra le chat, il telefono si blocca spesso, costringendoti a uscire e riaprire l'app. Tuttavia, questo non è stato il motivo principale del reso. Il vero problema è l'assenza del T9 in italiano: sono disponibili diverse lingue, ma non l'italiano. Questo rende la scrittura su WhatsApp estremamente lenta e scomoda: per scrivere una semplice frase possono volerci anche un paio di minuti. La batteria dura circa due giorni con Wi-Fi e connessione dati attivi e un utilizzo normale. Consiglio inoltre di acquistare una microSD, perché la memoria interna è di soli 6 GB e il sistema operativo ne occupa già più di 2. In conclusione, è davvero un peccato, perché il telefono avrebbe un ottimo potenziale. Se WhatsApp fosse stato ottimizzato e fosse stato presente il T9 in italiano, sarebbe stato un eccellente telefono per chi cerca un telefono senza social e distrazioni. Purtroppo queste mancanze lo trasformano in un dispositivo appena sufficiente e, per chi ha bisogno di usare WhatsApp con una certa frequenza, quasi inutilizzabile.

Ce téléphone ne conviendra pas à tout le monde ! Il est très solide, un bon feeling de qualité, mais trop cher pour ce qu'il offre (80 euro serait un prix plus juste) Il me fallait Whatsapp, très bien pour lire, mais vraiment pas top pour écrire (5 à 10 fois plus de temps qu'avec un smartphone avec un clavier complet) et totalement inadapté pour partager des photos (à ce niveau de lenteur de chargement du fichier, il est probablement plus rapide transmettre la photo par La Poste... J'ai abandonné après 1 heure de chargement infructueux...). Autre point négatif, les podcasts cherchés (et là encore, saleté de clavier à l'ancienne...) ne sont pas lus, il faut les mettre dans le fichier en passant par un ordinateur. La radio ne fonctionne qu'en branchant des écouteurs filaires (qui servent d'antenne), ce n'est pas le plus pratique... La batterie est décevante, 2 jours en utilisation modérée, c'est bien loin de ce qui est annoncé ! Dernier point, pourquoi cet antique mini-USB qui charge à la vitesse d'un escargot estropié ?! Malgré tous ces points énervants au quotidien, je l'aime bien, il correspond à ma philosophie qui veut éviter la surconsommation d'app et l'utilisation effrénée d'internet, il est solide et sympa a avoir en main, mais les multiples vérifications pour les achats en lignes m'empêchent de me séparer d'une tablette un peu plus poussée...

Super Handy, kann unterwegs WhatsAPPs lesen (theoretisch auch schreiben). Was sehr wichtig ist: WhatsAPP Web funktioniert auch! Das ist für mich völlig ausreichend... Lange Akkulaufzeit (kanns nicht genau sagen, weil ich WLAN , Bluetooth und Standort ausgeschaltet hab. Schalte auch die mobilen Daten nur bei Bedarf ein.) Warum das Handy einen GPS Empfänger eingebaut hat weiß ich nicht, Maps funktioniert nicht. Eine Schwachstelle ist sicher der Browser, bei dem funktionieren viele Webseiten nicht (Maps, Gmail, Telegram,...) Es gibt keine Angaben über die Kratzfestigkeit vom Display und die Anleitung ist englisch und dürftig. Die Einrichtung von den mobilen Daten ist aufwendig, diese APN Daten von der SIM Karte musste ich händisch eingeben. Update: Es gab ein Update, der Browser wurde aktualisiert. Maps funktioniert jetzt, aber nicht alle Webseiten (z.B. Telegram ist nicht möglich).