Apple’s iPhone 4 is often held up as a pinnacle of phone design, but what about the Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone? With its friendly features (a big smiley face painted on the front) and mobile design (thanks to its four wheels), the Chatter Telephone has long been the gadget of choice among the aesthetically discerning and the under-4s. This week, to celebrate the device’s 60th anniversary, Fisher-Price has blown our minds once more with its courage and innovation: the Chatter Telephone now makes and receives phone calls.
The new Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone Bluetooth edition is, admittedly, an accessory rather than fully-fledged mobile device. It connects to your Android or iOS phone over Bluetooth, and, according to Gizmodo, you can actually dial numbers using the plastic rotary dial and answer and hang up calls by lifting and replacing the handset on the cradle. There’s even a loudspeaker function, for when you’re taking that super important conference to try and nail down who took your nose.
It’s not all good news though. Rather disappointingly, the $60 gadget charges via the extremely outdated microUSB, but I guess that is an appropriately retrograde choice. The phone is available to preorder exclusively at Best Buy, though it’s not clear when it will be shipping. You can, at least, rest assured that supplies won’t be affected by the chip shortage, and we expect that more than a few households will be adorning their home offices with one of these beauties come Christmas.