Aspera

I bought a new Aspera R40 in June 2024, as I wanted a tough dumb phone. It wasn't exactly that but near enough. I was happy with it until the battery… Read more

died in March 2026. Apsera have discontinued not only the phone, but also the battery - and no generic batteries fit the unit. Never buy an Aspera phone!

Very hard to use – How does it get 3+ stars? Looks good for oldies, very sturdy, big buttons but very difficult to use. I could not master text, smart phone much easier to use. I was going to donate to Op Shop but will probably not be doing them a favour.

A dumbphone that's not so dumb – I would have liked to have picked up, handled, felt the weight, and otherwise had a play with the phone before… Read more

purchasing but most retailers were online stores. Big W was the only shop I could find that actually stocked the R40, but they had no demo model available to examine. Annoying. I took a punt and paid my money - $129. The deal included a $20 Amaysim starter SIM offer. This had little value to me as I already have an account with another provider. The phone was unlocked.

The pack came with a tool they called a screwdriver. There are two screws securing the back of the phone that must be loosened for battery and SIM access. This "screwdriver" was difficult to hold and poorly made. I feared damaging the heads of the screws had I used it, and instead used a real screwdriver. The back, with screws removed, comes off easily. I like this idea. It probably helps make it waterproof.

The phone uses a Micro SIM card, and the package included a tiny cradle to support the Nano card that I had, which was convenient. It was still difficult to get the SIM card into place.

The charger unit can be separated from its cable, which I liked. The end which plugs into the phone was of the older type, which I liked too. That meant that it was interchangeable with my other (old) phones and equipment. I initially couldn’t work out where the cable attached on the phone for charging. A quick check of the instructions pointed to the spot. There are in fact markings on the rubber cover that protects the USB charging port and headphone jack. The cover fits very well and I had a little difficulty working it free. A good strong fingernail helps. You’d want to take care to press the rubber cover well home when finished to ensure the phone remains waterproof. For the same reason, you’d need to be careful when releasing the cover so as not to damage it. I found the cover’s placement, when opened, resulted in the charging port to be awkwardly close to the cover's anchor that made it a little difficult to insert the cable. I was surprised these ports were located at the top of the phone. If you want to use the phone in the rain there would be less chance of water entering the ports had they been located at the bottom of the phone rather than the top.

I was very pleased the phone has both a timer and stopwatch in addition to an alarm clock. I set the alarm. I was surprised that at the appointed time for the alarm to go off in the morning the screen lit up but the phone was soundless. A silent alarm. That’s interesting. A novel idea. But no, the volume was set to a reasonable level, because I checked that. When the alarm activated and I went to shut it off (ie. put the light out) there was a snooze function. There are options to have different length snoozes but no option to disable the function. On the second day, the alarm failed to go off at all, despite it being set for weekdays. I deleted the alarm and created a new alarm and it now seems to be working just fine.

I was surprised by how many options/apps were available for a dumb phone. The main screen shows the following: WhatsApp, Facebook, Assistant, Maps, and YouTube. Then scrolling through the other functions you get the following: Store, Contacts, Call log, Browser, News, KaiWeather, Messages, Camera, Games, Utilities, Gallery, Clock, Google, Music, Settings, Calendar, Astrolo, Email, Video, Note, QR Reader, FM radio, File Manager, Memory Cleaner.

All of the above occupy three screens. Getting to the one you want means scrolling past each one. Tedious. However, they can be moved and shifting your favourites to the front is so convenient. That’s nice and I was surprised it was available on a dumb phone. Not so dumb, after all.

The Hotspot facility works well. I have an old Nokia smartphone and I compared the speed of both phones. The Nokia used 2.4 GHz only. I have no idea what the R40 uses. Test results (in Mbps) shown here is the average of 4 tests:

R40: 37.33 download, 8.91 upload. Nokia: 29.26 download, 5.78 upload.

Speed test results will vary depending on the time of day and network load, but there was a pattern that showed the R40 performing well. I have been using the Nokia to run Netflix and while a little slow there have never been any buffering issues. With the R40 outdoing the Nokia I expect the R40 will see me through many Netflix movies, and when I set it up with my TV to try this out, it functioned perfectly.

Not in the user guide, but the red hangup button does a few other things depending on whether you are on a call or not. It’s worth experimenting. Actually, there are probably a lot of things the phone can do that are not described in the instructions. I came across two that took my interest. There is no indication in the instructions of the phone having a speed dial function, but it does. Lovely. The other is that when in the Call Log screen, phone numbers can be blocked. Though, I fell into a trap with this screen. The right Context button is just above the Hangup button. When not on a call, the Hangup button is used for backing up to a previous menu. When the Call Log screen was open I accidentally clicked on the Context button rather than the Hangup button. I didn’t realise I had done that and the effect of which was to block calls from the number I was viewing. Possibly an ‘are you sure’ dialogue at that point would have been handy. It’s easy to change it back, but care is required.

Messages. I was disappointed that predictive text was unavailable when I went to use it, despite the instructions saying that it was possible. I managed to get it working which was great. The Settings lineup includes Personalisation > Language and there are a lot of options, but I’m not sure of its function. Perhaps it’s for display purposes. Settings also includes Personalisation > Input Methods > Input Languages and another list of languages is available for selection. I had it set to English (GB) and when set like that Predictive text doesn’t work. Changing the selection to English (US) makes Predictive text become active. I guess I’ll have to constantly misspell the word colour whenever I send a message.

The speaker can be activated. Presumably for hands-free use. Not so impressed by it. But that may be because I’m a bit deaf. My old ZTE T96, which is a tiny phone by comparison, has more volume when set to external speaker than this phone. Disappointing.

Camera. I was getting used to the idea that the phone has a lousy camera (2 MP) because that’s just one of the things manufacturers of dumbphones generally do. Not all companies, but most of them. Anyway, I had need to use the camera. I had to take a photo of a document, and the image of the page was remarkably clear. Sure, there was a bit of fuzziness, and some of that may have been due to handshake, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the image.

And as for the battery, it’s not as good as advertised. Perhaps my phone had the bad luck to get a dodgy battery. I charged the phone fully and with very minimal use (alarm going off weekdays in the morning, very few calls, and some messages received) the battery lasted 7.5 days. (Charged to 100% on a Tue and it dropped steadily until it reached 1% on Wed, the eighth day.) Aspera claims a 15-day standby. I only got half of that. Perhaps if I didn’t have the alarm set, took no calls, and it was left sitting on the desk undisturbed it may well have lasted 15 days. I don’t know. And it’s winter, which would not have helped.

Overall: Mostly happy. I just wish it was smaller, but that's life. I think I'm going to love this one.

Purchased in May 2024 for $129.

Updated: May 2025 I posted my initial impressions of the phone about a year ago, not long after I bought it. This is an update. No change in my impressions, but for those who might be interested, I can add the following.

I find the battery life disappointing. The battery takes about a week to go flat with the phone on standby and minimum usage (really) of the phone. For such a large battery, I would have expected better while on standby. The alarm/clock behaviour is odd.

In October, we moved to Daylight Saving time. Clocks were to be advanced 1 hour. Electronic devices were to do that automatically. My phone didn’t do that. It stayed at the old time. I checked that the phone was set for an automatic sync. Yes. But it still displayed the old time. I rebooted, which forced it to update to the correct time. I use the phone as an alarm clock. It usually goes off at 6.00 am. On the first day following the time change to daylight saving time, instead of the alarm going off at 6.00 am, it went off an hour late at 7.00 am. I checked the alarm setting, and it was set to 6.00 am. Weird.

In April, Daylight Saving ended. Clocks were to be put back an hour. The time on the phone didn’t change, but when I rebooted it the phone started with the correct time. I can live with that. So, the next day was a work day. The alarm was set for 6.00 am as usual, but it went off at 5.00 am instead. That was annoying. When I checked the alarm setting, it showed 6.00 am. Then I was surprised to hear the alarm going off at 6.00 am. I wondered what it would do the next day, but it was back to normal.

I got up early one morning before the alarm went off. So, I opened the relevant screen and disabled the alarm. (I unticked the alarm setting, then backed out to the main screen.) I was surprised to note that when the time arrived, the alarm went off as usual, despite the alarm having been cancelled.

Should be a Factory Recall! – I have 2 of these Phones, one Brand New, with the EXACT fault as many others in this Review, (Won't make or receive calls, keeps switching from 3G to… Read more

4G etc) I will be taking this to Choice Magazine, as I notice the Customer Service is non-existent!.(kick the can, till you give up) Don't buy this phone!. Needed it for a Pensioner friend who lost everything (including his phone) in a house fire. Now I have to go shopping!. AGAIN!.

Worst phone ever. Don't buy! – Got this phone for my son for xmas. It's terrible. Extremely slow, can't even write a text it's so slow. Youtube doesn't work on it at all. It… Read more

freezes constantly and won't even turn off or reset when it's frozen. Completely useless piece of junk, it's going in the bin where it belongs. Will never buy from this brand again and advise others not to.

Terrible phone. Broke easy. SHOCKING customer service – Phone advertised as shock proof - shattered screen CT after fall of 20cm. Company simply don't care, terrible customer service. BTW: the phone was touchy, difficult to use/ terrible touch screen & the camera is TERRIBLE

aspera customer service is abysmal – needed a replacement/ refund on their terrible phone after a few months- treated Like I had the plague...they just didn't care/ don't want to know.… Read more

Aspera customer service is terrible, their commitment to their product is non-existent. Btw; the phone was utter garbage; camera= shockingly bad. Touch screen = shockingly bad. Battery slow to charge but quick to drain.... Just a terrible, terrible phone. Never buy an aspera phone.