I rocked a Samsung Alias 2 for 4 years before I got an iPhone 5. The e-ink keyboard was awesome how it changed when you flipped the screen open to portrait or landscape.
Nokia N75. It was an upgrade from a Sony Ericsson hand-me-down after my invincible Nokia was thrown out of the window of my car as it was being stolen (I called it and the thief answered… long story).
The N75 had a 2mp camera and MP3 playing, but tiny storage and I got a free iPod (the touch wheel one) with a college powebook around the same time. I used the N75 online once, to locate a restaurant one time, and it probably cost my $3-5 since I had no data plan.
This was a right before the iPhone 3G would make those affordable and launch the App Store. I bought that for my wife and we never went back.
Technically, but it was useless for any of the things that we use in smart phones. It had terrible web browsing, no GPS. Very few apps outside of games. T9 typing (which should have disqualified it in the first place). It was a camera phone that they tried to upsell as a smartphone and a big part of why Nokia lost so much market to Apple and later Android.
Smartphones used to have a different purpose than they do now. Just because it doesn’t have a querty keyboard, doesn’t mean it’s not a smartphone. Just look at the first iPhone, it’s just as useless, it didn’t even have the ability to install apps (imo it’s a must for smartphones) , yet hardly anyone will dispute whether it was a smartphone.
iPhone had gps and mapping and really nice full website browsing, plus bigger storage and music (since we all wanted iPod phones before then).
I’d argue one of the bigger factors in its success was that it had an unlimited data plan (which I never should have let go of).
The N75 may have had Bluetooth, the OS, and a browser, but lacked the UI to use it. It was a camera phone marketed as a smartphone because it launched right after the first iPhone.
I never used N75, but i had n95, and they’re both running Symbian OS so I assume they were similar at least in software. I had full website browsing (made faster thanks to opera mini), email, file manager. I also had third party apps like Skype, Google maps (doesn’t matter whether you have gps), Gmail. If that’s not a smartphone then I don’t know what is.
Even the wiki you linked to clearly defines it as a smartphone. Why would you argue with that?
I had a Motorola StarTac, but I also had a plug-in organizer that I could import my contacts and initiate calls with. On top of that I had a cable that that I could tether my iPaq to by dialing #777 . My next phone was a Palm Treo.
My last non-Andorid phone was a Motorola Krzr. It was a little longer and much less wide than a Razr. If I couldn’t have a smartphone I would go back to that design in a second. It worked very well.
My very first phone was my only non “smart” phone. And even then it was pretty powerful for what it was. It had a web browser, could play mp3s, etc. but I don’t think it was explicitly a smart phone.
My next phone was a Pantech Duo which was labeled a smart phone, but probably wouldn’t be considered one by modern standards. It did the same thing as the previous phone, but you could load apps onto it, came with word, excel mobile on it, could do email, etc.
After that phone I got an iPhone 3g shortly after the 3gs came out.
Had a Samsung F250L. Neat little phone, decent camera for the time I’ve had it (2008-13). As much as I’d like some dumb phones again, the very least it’d had to have is fucking whatsapp, otherwise i’d be the “incommunicado”. I suspect something running KaiOS would suffice
Last non-android was a Nokia 95-4. Was still fairly smart though. In fact if I recall it had a lot more functionality than the iPhone 3g that my gf had at the same time.
I’m to young for. feature phones. although my first phone was a wonderful 2010 HTC desire brown a high-end phone in its heyday with 576mb of ram and a 3.7 touchscreen and like with most older android smartphones this had an user replaceable battery headphone jack and are easy to root… They don’t make erm like they use to
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