this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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That’s not a dumbphone. It has email, a camera, an e-reader and , looks like, a few other apps.
Mobile phones in the era before smartphones had cameras, email clients, games, music players, and even web browsers. They just weren't very good at those functions and their core feature was being a phone for voice calls. Texting was barely a feature on some of them (the first camera phone in the United States, the Sanyo SCP-5300, didn't have a two way text messaging client - the user had to go to a website on the phone to send texts, which was inconvenient even on a 1xRTT 3G connection.)
The e-ink phone seems closer to a dumbphone than a smartphone, IMO, largely because it lacks access to an app store.
Source: I sold mobile phones before smartphones and during the early smartphone years (BlackBerry and Palm Treo, for example.)
Edit: calling it a feature phone instead of a dumb phone might be more accurate.
SCP-5300 😮
I disagree. A dumbphone (in my opinion) is a phone that does everything you need and nothing you don't, and is distraction-free. And especially one that DOES NOT run Android. Email is unfortunately essential in the modern age.
But you do you, fam.
While I get your opinion, these things have definitions. Here's a super simple version:
So yes, this is a feature phone from what I've read of the translation.
Then I can't message anyone since people use messaging clients like signal and not actual texts
Which is why dumb phones and feature phones aren't common anymore, and the people choosing them are specifically choosing it to avoid being available via WhatsApp/Signal/Slack/Discord/Teams/whatever else.
My FIL for example has a clamshell feature phone, because he doesn't want to be reached except by phone or SMS. He doesn't want to read email or get messages on his phone, he wants to restrict that to when he's in front of his computer.
So yes, you would not be able to use messaging clients on a dumb phone, that's the idea behind their use today.
I remember sending a Facebook message on my feature phone. I had to type with the num pad and it took minutes to load the page, but it I was successful.
I think people are forgetting that feature phones were connected to the internet back in the day
A dumb phone and a feature phone are not the same thing, and a feature phone may connect to the internet.
And who decided these definitions, and what makes them an authority?
Several decades of phone technology as it developed...
Edit: and why are you just down voting everyone replying providing you with info?
...so you just made it up then.
No one has done that. The only comments I'm downvoting are the ones spreading disinformation.
No, the phone industry made up these terms.
So how I read that is "Anything that isn't what I want it to say is disinformation".
Well, enjoy your day buddy, my participation in this thread is over. Its a neat feature phone, and that's where I'll be leaving that.
Except you can't find any citations, so I'm pretty sure ya did.
Very unsurprisingly, you're reading it wrong. And you know it.
Excellent, glad to hear it!
Why are you so defensive? Like, you're really making an effort to come off as ignorant.
Why are you?
The Wikipedia page for Feature Phone looks to have been started in 2011.
The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and popularized Smart Phones to a point that Feature Phone grew in use enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry a few years later.
You better head over to Wikipedia to fix the misinformation issue they have had for over a decade now.
Should that mean something to me?
Did I say the phrase "feature phone" was misinformation? The fact that it exists or the date it came into existence disproves nothing...
Since we're just making up definitions, a dumb phone is now a type of salad.
I need to get more dumb phones in my diet.
Just because we have different interpretations doesn't mean we're "making up definitions". Who made you the definitive authority?
We don't have different interpretations. You are just misrepresenting the definition. That's not what a dumb phone is.
Prove me wrong. Go ahead. I'll wait.
That's a feature phone.
Man when's the last time you heard that one?
Feature phones typically have more "features" than dumbphones, hence the name. They almost always run Android as well which means they build in all sorts of telemetry and dependencies.
I consider anything that even touches data (even 3gp or email) and can play MP3s a feature phone. Even if this thing didnt play MP3's, the fact it can read ebooks I'd say makes it one.
Is 3gp still a thing?
You're free to disagree. I'm not the one telling others they're wrong for having a different perspective.
Never heard of it, did you mean 3G?
No, early mobile internet. Predated the smart phone boom.