Thought this might interest some Lemmy folks.
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.
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?
Since we’re just making up definitions, a dumb phone is now a type of salad.
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.
While I get your opinion, these things have definitions. Here’s a super simple version:
- A dumb phone does not connect to the internet. Its a phone. Just a dumb device.
- A feature phone is what you’re referring to here, where it may connect to the internet, but isn’t part of some larger ecosystem and is certainly not an app-first approach. Its a phone first, ancillary features are a bonus.
- Smartphones are your android and iOS devices, which connect to the internet, is part of a large ecosystem of applications, is an internet first oriented device, etc.
So yes, this is a feature phone from what I’ve read of the translation.
Several decades of phone technology as it developed…
Edit: and why are you just down voting everyone replying providing you with info?
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.
