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Why Dumbphones Still Dominate, For Now
Velcroman1 writes "Androids are awesome, iPhones impressive ... but dumbphones still dominate. Of the 234 million cell phone users in America last year, a dominating 73 percent own traditional (aka non-smart) devices, according to market researcher comScore. Despite their more popular mindshare, intelligent devices like the Apple iPhone and phones based on Google's Android operating system own barely a quarter of the market."
Some people are smart enough to realise (and have the restraint) that you don't need to be connected all the time; that it's actually healthier not to be.
Alas, I'm not one of them.
I use the phone to make calls and send texts. I don't have a need for the added features of the "smart" phone, and can't justify the extra expense for the new toy or it's higher cost data plan.
and on fox news. Who'da thunk it?
“And they certainly don’t want the additional monthly bill,” which can cost upwards of $30-50 extra, depending on the web service.
That's it. I held out until a year ago. I preferred my candy bar Nokia with $24/mo. Now I'm on a DROID with $77/mo cost. And that's with a 25% discount from my employer! Trust me, if I lost my job or found myself in hard times this would be the first thing to go. Unfortunately I'm in a two year contract -- yet another aspect that should scare you.
I predict dumbphones will continue to dominate until the major carriers stop this ridiculous pricing model. In my eyes, my DROID is waste -- albeit enjoyable and convenient. It's very hard to convince me that there is a $50 dollar per month difference in what these devices do on the carrier's network.
My work here is dung.
“I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.” - Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer and original implementer of C++
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
You have to pay for internet service to a smart phone, some people (such as myself) see that as a waste of money, when I have internet at home, and the smart phones/plans don't allow tethering without a jailbreak (ie, put you at risk for losing internet or your whole phone)
Although my wife has an Android phone, I make do with a Tracphone $15 special I got. It's definitely a "dumb" phone, but I don't text, and rarely make calls. I use an iPod Touch, and that is enough for a portable pocket computer; I only sometimes miss the work anywhere of a 3G device. Would I like a smart phone? Sure. Do I want to pay for two people's voice+data plans? Nope. I'm betting that many others are in the same boat.
I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check. -M.C. Escher (1898-1972)
You can get a dumb-phone for a tenth of the price of the average smart-phone.
Phones run on a 3-4 year life cycle, because that is what people's contracts on North American plans run at. 3 years ago Android was a pile of crap and the iPhone was quite expensive.
3 years from now everyone in that 75% will have a smartphone, if for no other reason than the fact that "dumb phones" won't even exist anymore. Android is shipping on bargain-basement $99 and under phones nowadays.
Because it costs less than a few hundred to replace?
There isn't a massive 4" touch screen just waiting to crack.
Without said screen they're much smaller.
They don't need charged daily.
My Nokia 1100 was hands down the best phone I ever owned. Very tiny, nearly indestructible, easy to read screen, T9 prediction was pretty good and it had the best 'feature' on any phone, an actual LED flashlight, I think I charged it once or twice a week.
Now that I'm on Verizon, I wish they had made a CDMA version.
It's nice to not have to charge your phone EVERY day.
Dumbphones works, Bitches.
In Norway with its 4,5 million inhabitants, in 2010 50% off all mobile phones sold (2,5 million phones) was a smartphone. And they expect it to climb to 70% this year.
- "Every demand is a prison, and wisdom is only free when it asks nothing." Sir Betrand Russell
Not everyone needs 24/7 internet access wherever they go. Not everyone wants it either. But since smartphones are pretty much making PDAs obsolete, there won't be much of a choice in a few years. Hopefully then the data prices will be trivial.
And that's exactly what most people expect from their mobile phones.
Owning a smartphone still requires a non-zero amount of computer literacy skills.
That's TFA's answer to the question posed by the title. Smart phones seem to be getting smaller. A few more years, and we'd probably get to the expendable part. But simple? Somehow I get the feeling that "smart" is the antithesis of "simple".
if i had all the money it costs per month for one of these phones, i would uhm, probably use it to buy food and clothes.
FTFA:
What’s more, cell phone carriers may eventually abandon dumbphones altogether, thanks in part to the more lucrative data plans they now sell, which are often required to use nicer devices -- even if consumers don’t want the pricey mobile Internet on their phone.
First of all, I shop based upon plans - NOT phones. Buying a phone and then plan is dumb thing to do as all those iPhone folks who got stuck with shit AT&T service in their respective areas. PEDANTS: Yes, I know some iPhone users had good service with AT&T, but it proves my point that you got to shop.
Second, I just want basic phone service with caller ID without having to answer the phone: no cameras, internet, music players, video players, etc... Last time I checked, those weren't available for the carrier that has decent service in my area.
So, I have no cell phone. Fuck it.
The smartphone user-base might be restricted by two things: cost and intellect!
I'm in the market for a dumb phone or two right now. Ever try to buy one? The market has fragmented into two: smartphones (which earn the carrier huge fees every month), and dirt-cheap phones they can give away for free. There are no more nice, well-made 'dumb' phones like the Nokia 8800.
Of course, even those free dumb phones aren't really 'dumb' any more - they can all text, have still cameras and often video ones, play music, and many can do simple web stuff and access Facebook. They aren't really dumb, they are just lacking the ability to download apps.
Because the primary use of a phone is making calls and smartphones are bulky ugly things with terrible battery life. Honestly if I could find a good simple lightweight phone with long battery life I would buy it in an instant - but now I'm stuck with the SE X10 mini pro, which doesn't really have any of those things. I'm not inclined to walk about with a 4" screen in my pocket and I presume a lot of people feel like that.
I control my dumbphone. However, in Soviet Russia ...
Besides, why trust all of your personal and business data to little object which is so easily lost?
My wife has an iPhone. She really benefits from reading e-mail on the go, and the mapping anywhere. She's a doula (professional birth coach) and mother of two young kids, so information on the go is important.
I need to be able to text during the day and place the occasional emergency phone call, rarely even once a month. I don't want to drop more than $50 to buy it, and I want to minimize my monthly fee (currently $15 above my wife's plan). My phone is way more than I need, and it was the freebie that AT&T was offering. I like T9 text entry, that's a nice extra feature. If I could drop games, applications, MediaNet and music and de-clutter the home screen, I'd like my phone even more. Yes, I want fewer features. Of course, I also like my iPod Touch, mostly for Safari and Facebook, but only within WiFi range. My biggest wish, however, is that AT&T would have a separate plan for people who want to actually buy a phone and not get the price amortized over the life of the plan.
Smart phone: $200 to $700
Data capable plan: $120 to $250 monthly
Dumb phone: $50 to $100
Simple plan: $40 to $80 monthly.
Um, what the fuck, do these phone companies think we're all multimillionaires?
1) They're cheap
2) They're simple
3) They're harder to break
4) From a business standpoint, your security guys and general staff don't need an expensive smartphone
5) No huge data charges
6) They last forever
7) They can go a week+ on a single charge
And they're just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Not everyone needs or wants a smartphone.
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
So while having a phone is handy - press buttons, talk to real people - the same is not true for a smartphone. The inconvenience of it's size and the complexity of it's functions make it more of a burden, especially if you have the mental resources not to need constant entertainment or distraction.
And on top of that (to borrow a phrase from Mad Dogs, Sky TV) "nothing of any significance has ever been typed with thumbs".
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I had a "smart phone" (T-Mobile Sidekick) when owning one only meant a $20 add-on cost to your existing plan to get unlimited data. These days they cap you for that price, and with evolutionary higher data rates you hit that cap much faster.
It seems like everyone around me have to replace their phone every 6 months. I'll stick with my indestructible nokia 3310 thanks.
perception is reality
The #1 reason that I avoid smart phones is standby time. I rarely use my phone. I don't take care of it. It's there so that the wife can call me. The current crop of smartphones eat power. I simply will not take care of a phone that runs down in a few days. That does not suit my needs. A phone without power can't do it's one and only job - be a phone.
I still happily use my Samsung flip phone and will simply replace the battery when it begins to get weak (still going strong 4 years now). I'm an IT guy and would love to have a great smartphone, but I refuse to pay the insane costs to do so. We are talking *thousands* of dollars over the course of just two years! I make a very good living and I refuse to spend my money that way, it blows my mind that every tween and minimum wage-earning person has one. I was able to take an amazing vacation to Grand Cayman Island last year for *less* than a smartphone plan would have cost me. People just don't think about the actual costs and blindly pay. Being able to update my Facebook status 24x7 is not better than 2 weeks on a beautiful beach snorkeling with cool fish and stingrays.
When they get it down to $40/month for voice and data (and not some paltry amount), I'll own one.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
1) Cheap? CHECK
2) Can sit on it without hurting ass or phone? CHECK
3) Can drop it out of shirt pocket many times? CHECK
4) At least one game? CHECK
and last but not least:
5) Can make phone calls easily? CHECK
Many smartphones fail 2 or 3, some fail 5. Most dumbphones get it right.
I see it as nice example why there won't be dominating form of computing and communication. People are different and have different needs of communication. 'Dumphones' works for most of people, I have smart one because I *want* to do something additionally - like browsing web or reading emails. It is free market, consumer choice based at it's best. My last dumphone - Benq produced Siemens S75 - was with me for 4 years. It was abused, it fell, were beaten uncounted times. But it still worked. I had to retire it after all power supply cables were gone and as Siemens phone line (even as Benq) were long gone, I made a move to Android. And even there, most important factors why I enjoy my HTC Wildfire it's superb integration of phone basic functionality - calls and messages within Sense/Android UI.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Go anywhere in the far east and try to even find a dumbphone. Everyone and their grandma over there is packing a smartphone, as an alternative to a PC. Most of them run BREW, the most popular OS you've never heard of.
Really, the North American market is a niche.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I really don't need it and a cheap dumb phone is fine for me. If I got one just for the bigger screen I am forced to have a data plan I don't want. Why should I watch videos on a tiny screen? There are actual big TVs now. Why am I paying for home Roadrunner and then paying AGAIN for net access on a phone? And then the hardware becomes obsolete in 2 years? It's just idiotic. I sometimes wonder who is paying for smart phones that kids use. If it's parents, they need to wise up. If kids are using a good chunk of their own paychecks for a phone, this is a waste. The only reason to have one is if someone at a party asks you where the best Bosnian restaurant in Stockholm is. You can whip out Google on your phone and everyone will say,"Ooooooo".
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
"They don't need charged daily."
To be charged. Please tell me that English isn't your first language.
I had a smart phone for 12 hours before I returned it to the store and got the el-cheap-o.
Smart phone was too big for my pockets.
Too hard to dial. No buttons. I don't have time to look at the phone, and carefully dial with 2 hands.
Too fucking complicated.
Too expensive.
Too easily damaged.
Can't hold it between my ear and shoulder
My current phone is whatever Sprint's free phone is. It's a great phone. It makes calls. It texts if I'm feeling fancy. It's fast and easy to use.
I think the whole smart phone thing is really silly. If I want to play games and email and all that, I've got a cheap-o laptop.
I don't respond to AC's.
Here's why I don't have a smartphone,
$160 total for 5 yrs of service, including the phone.
I have a pay-as-you-go phone. It was $20 and included some minutes that expired in 90 days. Before they expired, I bought $100 more minutes - doing that changed the plan from 90 day expiration to 365 day expiration.
Every year following that, I put $10 more in minutes on the SIM card.
20 + 100 + 10 + 10 +10 + 10 = $160.
I'm thinking of getting a new phone for $20. Er, probably not. I don't need it. BTW, 10 days of standby time on the current phone. What smart phone can do that?
If I had a smart phone - even if it were free, that would still be just 3 months of service under the data plans available here.
Smart phones are for dumb consumers - or people with more money than they need or for people with a business requirements for the phones.
Smart phones are only smart for the cellular companies.
I have a dumbphone and i am not afraid to use it. Its cheap and it actually can make calls.
I have a Blackberry from my employee. I have unlimited data and voice package for business and personal use, yet I couldn't give a damn about the phones.
The voice is the same as 10 years ago and the Internet connection is the same rubbish it was ~5 years ago (first time I tried 3G). I don't see any point in apps, since I have access to optical line both at home and at work.
Unless the Internet connection improves (and it won't anytime soon) I don't see any reason to own a smart phone.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Not everyone wants to join sea org for the pleasure of owning an iPhone.
I went shopping around for phones last year. The cheapest smart phone in my region was about $150 with a three year contract. A regular mobile phone which would play music, send texts, take pictures and maintain alarms, play games and store contacts was $20 with a one year contract. It was a pretty easy choice.
Honestly. Many people simply do not have the need, desire, temperament, or extra money required to purchase something other than a "dumbphone". Also, "dumbphones" make phone calls just as well as the so-called "smartphones".
It has nothing to do with being smart enough to realize you don't need one.
There are a few phones targeted at children and seniors. No features, big keys, big easy to read screen.
http://www.info4cellphones.com/just5-cell-phone-for-seniors.html
Data plans are simply too expensive. You can get a non-smart phone on a low minute plan for ~$30/month. The same thing with a smart phone is going to run double that per month.
They're clearly working at changing that by not offering nice non-smart phones.
1) Cost. 2) I don't want to be "always-on" for everybody and everything that is connected.My cell phone is for my convenience, not for the convenience of others. I am an IT pro and have been on the Internet one way or another since 1984. Since I am not a day today SysAdmin anymore, I have a work Cell phone that Ionly have on during work hours. My personal cellphone is really an emergency only phone: a pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile phone.
They say that like it's a bad thing.
What percentage of the mobile market were smart phones two years ago?
Five years ago?
To have so many more people buying smart phones in such a relativley short amount of time is pretty amazing. What is even more amazing is that the current crop of smart phones has people using them like smart phones. Five years ago, I'd wager half the people that had "smart phones" didn't use the "smart" features but used them as a good old fashioned mobile phone and nothing more. (Crackberry users excepted.) But with the advent of iPhone and Androids, smart phone users downloading and using various apps has become ubiquitous behavior among smart phone users.
That's a paradigm shift happening right in front of our eyes.
Owning a smartphone still requires a non-zero amount of computer literacy skills.
USING a "smartphone" might require a non-zero amount of computer literacy - but only if by using you mean "using to full extent of its hardware and software capabilities".
To own it, you simply need to claim it your own - and be prepared to back that up in some way. By a way of a receipt or very quick feet.
Thing is... smartphone is an "appliance" that you can also use as a computer.
If you know how to use a regular non-rotary phone - you know how to use the phone aspect of the smartphone.
If you know how to use a point-and-shoot camera - you know how to use the camera aspect of it.
If you know how to use a digital video/music player - you know how to play music/videos on a smartphone.
As long as you are familiar with the use of the appliance it is emulating - you know how to use that aspect of the phone.
If you want to install and/or setup applications and change specific hardware/software settings - THAT is where the non-zero computer literacy comes in.
Just the other day I was asked by someone to help them with logging onto Facebook with their "smartphone".
She had that phone for some time now, but she couldn't log in with it to Facebook. It turns out, she couldn't figure out how to type in her e-mail address.
On her computer, she just clicks the bookmark - that I had to set up for her.
At the same time, her phone (and her Facebook account) is full of photos, messages, music etc.
Oh... sure... She OWNS a computer. But it could just as well be a typewriter/TV/chat-machine combo for all she cares.
Since it's a laptop, she can even simply put it on standby by simply closing it. Kinda like the way you don't actually turn off the TV - you just put it on stand-by.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Pay as you go with light usage averages under $10 a month for me.
Cheapest smart phones with a plan are roughly $100/mo, plus a 2 year contract. You have to either be pretty addicted or pretty dumb to want that.
When they get around to letting me buy a gigabyte for $5-10 bucks as a pay as you go I might consider it, but right now the data plans are psychotic, the contract terms are draconian, and the non-subsidized prices are insane.
Wow that is shocking. So in just a few years Smartphones went from a tiny percentage of the market to a huge percentage of the market? And this is shocking? I mean this is like the big news is how fast they are growing not that they are that small for a percentage. Yes a lot of people do not need smartphones but then a lot of people didn't need cell phones.
My guess is that if you keep watching the percentage will keep growing. Right now you can get smartphones for free. This weekend at Tmobile you can get any smartphone for free. The data plans are the killer but that may also change. And to all the people that don't want or like smartphones. Well that is your choice. My 78 year old stepfather agrees with you. He just wants to make calls. I on the other hand enjoy my EVO.
but then he also didn't see why anyone would want a computer at home and then why anyone would want the internet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
These stories are always fun. The comment section is just a giant circle jerk of self-congratulatory praise about their decision to go with a dumb-phone
Simple flip phone, send the occasional text, nothing more. Simple is good.
Most people just want to send text messages and make phone calls. A phone doesn't have to be too bloody smart to do that. Smart phones are expensive and break easily. My daughter has gone through two smart phones in the last year. After mine stopped working (the touch screen doesn't work), I went back to an older model. Maybe, someday, if they start getting reliable, and if the monthly cost comes down, I might consider a smart phone, but right now I think smart phones are really dumb.
Proverbs 21:19
On Virgin Mobile, I have a borderline-stupid phone (the LG Rumor Touch) with a slide-out keyboard and a touchscreen. The response time and feature content of this phone are absolute garbage compared to any iPhone or Android model.
On the other hand:
- The phone cost me $120 with no contract, so its inadvertent destruction is not too painful for my wallet.
- NO CONTRACT. Worth saying again. I can walk tomorrow if I find a better deal or the company pisses me off.
- The internet access works just fine if I'm in a pinch. Chat, gmail, google maps w/ rudimentary GPS, checking the scores of sporting events... it's not so smooth that I'd want to be on it 24/7, but if I need to find something out I can.
- It's $26.50 monthly after tax for 300 voice minutes, unlimited texting, and "unlimited" internet.
- If you're paranoid, it's easy to pay cash for one of these at a big box store and pay cash for cards to top-up the bill.
I'm aware that this reads like an advertisement, but for the last five years -- after a slashdot poster mentioned 'em to me -- I've been utterly pleased with the service and pricing.
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
I have a "dumbphone" so that my work/family can contact me in an emergency situation regardless of my location. Any other feature a Smartphone has my computer does as well, and it can wait until I get home.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Locally, I can get a prepaid smart phone plan for $50 per month with unlimited voice and data.
Of course, that is a good deal more pricy than some of the pre-paid voice only plans. Before I went post-paid, I was paying T*Mobile $100 annually for a bucket of 1000 minutes. I could have stretched the minutes out longer than a year but you have to buy a new prepaid card every 12 months to keep your minutes.
The phones themselves start in the $50 to $100 range. Even AT&T is selling the iPhone 3gs for $50 a pop.
Which, admittedly, is more expensive than the $10 to $20 it takes to buy a basic phone that does no more than make phone calls. On the other hand, you can find subsidized phones in both cases where signing up for a 2 year contract makes the price of the phone "free."
For me, it's the regular calls that are expensive. I pay $100 a year on a prepaid phone, and I don't even use all the minutes. I'd get a lot more use out of the data capabilities of a smartphone, but even the crappiest smartphone plan is many times more expensive, and completely oversized for someone that might spend less than 5 minutes in regular calls a month.
The other 75% of mobile users who aren't geeks, businessmen, or Facebook addicts, don't understand why you'd want to pay an extra $30/month to be able to read the latest forwards from grandma about how you can see better driving in the rain if you wear sunglasses. They either don't bother, or they get an iPod Touch instead. Cant say I blame them, really.
We won't see 100% smartphone penetration until all phones are smartphone and the data plan is included "free." Until then there will be plenty of holdouts who simply don't care.
Nothing beats so-called dumb phones for the simple task of making phone calls. Smart phones are actually worse at the core thing they are designed to do, they drop more calls, they have worse battery life, they are not as easy to hold. Dumb phones that just work is a market that Nokia utterly dominates.
Nokia has clearly been smoking crack to want to stop focusing on the one thing they do better than everyone else. They are going to become a third class company in the shiny-things category.
Price, price, and oh, PRICE. Most people simply do not need nor want to spend $100 a month on cell service on top of the $200+ for the damned phone.
A small, nimble phone that I can drop into my pocket along with things like keys and not butt-dial all the time. First an formost it must be able to make ... oh I don't know ... phone calls.
There are times when I like the smart phone -> bored waiting for airplane/someone/no-one etc. When I need to find the nearest store or restaurant. Sometimes navigation. etc. I think all that could be handled by a tethered device.
You can't hear any better on a smart phone over a dumb cell phone.
I have a pay-as-you-go phone for minimum $10 CDN a month for 100 minutes. In fact I often roll over my minutes so I have about 10k minutes in reserve. It has more than I need. It has call forwarding, missed calls, voice mail, text messaging, email and if I wanted to pay extra for it, a crude form rather useless form of web surfing. I sit down to complete real work and meet with people once in the day for 20 min., rather than a dozen cryptic messages sent/received over 12 hours.
Working on the bus, so to speak, doesn't lend itself to quality work necessarily. I observe my adult children waste huge amounts of time doing basically nothing constructive with very little actual constructive work on their $100/mon.+, smart phones. They spend more time in the virtual phone worlds than they do with the person sitting right next to them. The concept of 'Always On' is I think, a destructive work environment, not a constructive one, as far as I see it. They certainly don't learn time management skills or especially develop critical thinking abilities. 90% is superficial and wasted time with perhaps that 10% being really useful and efficient. It hasn't raised their quality of life nor standard of living. But I guess you have to do it, if the rest of the world does.
No matter how many documents, links, maps, locations a minute are exchanged, the results are average because of the low grade responses. Often it is quick answers to issues, that end up having to be revisited several times before a proper consensus or solution is achieved, with a net loss of time on subject. It takes time and consideration to achieve good results and that is something smart phones don't seem to be addressing. Most likely because of the society's culture of instant gratification spilling over into how we communicate and problem solve. It may make someone look busy, but are they really?
But then again after 30 years in high tech developing new technology, I'm now retired at 55, so I'm out of the loop.
So under peer pressure from my fellow geeks, I joined the smartphone revolution and bought an HTC EVO. What do I do on my new smart phone? Call people, receive calls, check voicemail, and text. What is harder to do on a smart phone? Call people, receive calls, check voicemail, and text. What do I not do with my smart phone? Read my e-mail, shop, get directions, remote into my PC, sling video, watch TV, play MP3s, tether, control my TV, play games, etc. I regret my smart phone move, and fact is, there will always be a segment of people who will have no desire to use their phone for anything but communicating with people in a space and energy efficient manner.
The main reason I don't go to a "smart phone" is the data price involved. The prices are so outrageous for not only the phones but especially for the data plans that most networks force upon you. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying upwards of $30/month for 1GB of internet use (that can be used up in less than a day with many of the apps on the various smartphone OS markets).
How about "they're super cheap", does that work as a good enough reason?
Like hell that I am going to shell out nearly a hundred a month to use one of these smart phones. If anything I think they coined the term "smart phone" to coerce people into paying the absurd monthly costs. As in, its a smart phone, which means the people using them are special, you know, smart, smarter and more hip than those who don't have one.
Really, people line up to pay over two hundred dollars for these and willingly sign up for nearly a hundred more a month just to use them? Oh I know, there are some alternatives, but most common unlimited plans with minutes will set you back nearly a hundred with taxes and fees.
Worse, I know quite a few people who do this who don't have the money for it. They of course are more than willing to have others pay for things they could be paying for if they didn't waste so much on status symbols which is what these phones are for a large number of people. I guess once "hicks" got blue tooth they needed a way to separate themselves again.
I can think of many better things to do with $1400 a year.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
IF you buy an unlocked or used (out of contract T-Mobile) smartphone, T-Mobile lets you put your sim card in it and use it with a voice-only plan.
I use a Nokia N95 and a jailbroken iPhone with my regular T-Mobile plan.
We're on a contract, but not a smartphone contract - if I bought a smartphone from T-Mobile, then they would require a data plan with it.
Putting moderation advice in your
The contract costs are simply too high, especially for a family with multiple phones (if I have a smartphone, the wife wants a smartphone). Just wish I could find a good dumbphone!
smart people = dumb phone approx $500/year in US
dumb people = smart phone for $1500/year capital+monthly + not healthy (brains not at peace)
Remember when you used to hear stories about "person lost in the woods four days, found from their cell phone?"
Us Android and iPhone users better be found in less than 24 hours of our departure from the AC adapter or we're dead.
Dude, where's my packet?
Smart phones have the battery life of a mayfly.
I remember going 7 days on a charge. Now I have a charger at home, a charger at work, a charger in my car.
It is easier to text.
My monthly cell bill has gone from $35 to $95. That's $780 a year. That's like $1500 pretax. That's $7800 every 10 years-- two european vacations, two nights with an eliot spitzer french maid, half of a solar power system which would lower my electricity bills by $1000 a year.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The majority of smartphones have cameras and more companies are not allowing employees who have access to important data to not have phones available w/ cameras. Companies are either not allowing phones in the work force or accept phones but they cannot contain a camera. I am sure that this factors low into the equation but somethign to consider.
In addition, smartphones aren't for anyone. Battery life takes a hit, data plans remain high especially on a family plan and personally the majority of the recent smartphone users are doing nothing more than Facebook and Twitter. Do those people really need a smartphone that a regular phone can't deliver?
string.Empty();
Find a mobile operator that will charge you by the minute only?
Do I have a smart phone? Yes, I have an Iphone 3GS that I got as a gift last Christmas from a well off friend when my old dumb-phone fell and decided to break in half.
Would I have a smart phone any other way? Not a chance, they are too expensive, the data plans for them are too expensive for my income currently and to be honest, with what little extra they do, I could make up with it by just getting a netbook or just get an Ipod or bring my Nintendo DS with me and be happy.
Sure, smart phones might be the wave of the future, but they need to increase their functionality a lot and come down in price for both the phone and the plans to be more consumer friendly.
And for the love of god make stuff that works better for people with big fingers, I am not a 12 year old or Japanese, trying to play Sodoku on that thing is hard enough cause all the miss hits on it when I try to put in a 5 but my fingers are so big that I am hitting the 4,5, and 6 when I press it. My banana hands aren't really good at a screen that small.
Also, when you try to port a fast paced game onto them things, the virtual controller on the screen isn't always the best way to go, people like to actually feel the buttons so they don't have to look at where their hands are positioned so they are where the button is supposed to be with their fingers covering up part of the action. If you are going for games like that, you need to have a flip out actual controller/keyboard or have some technology that raises the surface of the screen in them areas to mimic an actual controller.
Because I can put my Razr in my pocket and barely notice it's there. There isn't a giant screen to worry about breaking. I don't need a data plan for my Razr, since I am around computers and things that play MP3s and movies (such as tablets or laptops). I also enjoy my double digit cellphone bill, as opposed to the triple digit bills of smart phones that carry data plans.
Also, a car ran over my Razr in the closed position. All it did was break the plastic shield around the outer LCD screen. $0.99 and a paypal payment later I had a new screen protector. Try running a smart phone over with a car. Doubt it will survive, let alone continue working flawlessly. lol
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
The main reason why not everyone has a smart phone, is because they havent been able to answer the most basic question: why would they?
I'm in the same boat. I looked at iphone, blackberry, android and they are all nice devices. But...really, i cant justify it to myself. Why would i want to buy one???
Actually, I find it kinda sad that PDAs disappear. I like to keep my gadgets separate. It's more convenient for me. I have a phone (not completely dumb, but not very smart too), an old HP PDA and separate MP3 player. I tried to listen music on my phone. Clumsy. I tried to use my PDA for talking on the phone (it can disguise as a hands-free bluetooth set) - clumsy too. The best for me is to have three separate gadgets. But alas, recently I decided to upgrade my PDA and what do I see? That no one makes and sells them now. There are only smartphones. So no PDA for me, I guess.
What about the obvious: the data plan.
Yeah, having 3G is nice, being always (or at least often) connected. But when I run the tally - 92% of my day is spent somewhere with wifi. If a smartphone didn't require a data plan, I'd be all over it. But between the data plan and the two year contract, I'm spending over $720 just to fill in my commutes with internet connectivity (not too much, mind you, I wouldn't want to overflow my cap).
The only other justification I see for this expense is the GPS. Take it out, I don't care. That's a more impressive feature, in my mind, than the 3G, but still not something I need or want.
To sum up - cost sucks. Give me an android wifi-only phone and I'll be a very happy person. Or an android wifi-only tablet - this is my new hope, since it seems required data plans aren't going away anytime soon.
Go anywhere in the far east and try to even find a dumbphone. Everyone and their grandma over there is packing a smartphone, as an alternative to a PC. Most of them run BREW, the most popular OS you've never heard of.
Really, the North American market is a niche.
Or, if the Far East is saturated with smart phones, then the North American market is a growth area. But really, other than Japan, which is fairly westernized, most Asian countries have quite a few people living in poverty. So, it may by the wealthy class has smartphones, but by far, most people in the Asian countries don't, unless they were provided by the government.
I own a Motorola i560, it does not have a camera, has only basic internet connections, does text, does calls, and touted as having military-grade protection against dust, shock, and vibration.
It suits me just fine. Cameras, apps, all that are just major drains on the battery, I want my cell phone to have longevity and functionality, not to play tetris or 'angry birds' or whatever with and thus run out of juice if I ever have car trouble. The simpler functionality also hopefully means a more basic (and as such better optimized) firmware and fewer vectors for hacking. I hear about people who use their phones as alarm clocks and then the alarm clocks fail for some reason, and I laugh. If you're in your own bed and you need an alarm clock, get a digital clock radio. Also hearing that the government lifted a ban on government employees using camera phones as it was becoming too difficult to find a non-camera phone makes me shake my head. I've got one, they still exist!
The phone is also a flip phone, so if I drop the blasted thing, I don't have to worry about the keypad or primary screen getting destroyed/scratched. I don't really care how thin it is, actually phones advertised as being thin turn me away, as that implies the battery is smaller so as to occupy less volume, meaning lower battery life.
That's what I want out of a phone: calls, texting, reliable service, long battery life, durability.
It is not for you or me to tell other people how to evaluate the convienence of a device that fits easily in a pocket or pocketbook; what you say about cost and function for the netbook may be true, but it may be outweighed by the slighlty larger size of the device.
Also, it is not clear that smartphone users need or want more functinality, and it is not for you or me to tell other people what works (you don't say that explicitily, but you are pretty sarcastic - it may be a toy to you, but if it works for someone else, you have no right to criticize that person)
I'm not someone that wants or needs to be connected at all times, so I'm not shelling out top dollar for the newest smartphone, I'm declining one being offered to me at work, and I'm just buying whichever Qwerty-enabled phone my carrier offers at a discount when my contract is up.
I think a phone should have the following:
(1) A phone/SMS messager with QWERTY button keyboard
(2) A still-shot camera
(3) An MP3 Player
(4) MicroSD card slot
(5) Simple interface (no amazing animations, video games, or attempts to connect to the internet)
Those are the only things I feel like I need with me. I don't need to jump online to find whatever or to use facespace, mybook, or tooter to keep in contact with people. I use instant messages, texts, or just speak to the person. I also don't want to shell out silly amounts of money for a data plan.
Lastly, I think that if a phone were to be made to my specifications, it could keep the size of current dumb phones and be able to fit in a separate battery for the MP3 player so that I could listen to my music until that battery dies and not screw myself over by killing my phone.
Why buy a phone I have no use for. Why pay more money for a plan I will never use? I don't have to impress anyone. Unless the unit is really neccesary, why own one?
Most people have dumb phones because most people are dumb.
I think the correlation is blatantly obvious.
A more interesting survey would be to analyze smart phone users and determine how many of them could still be using dumb phones and not lose any functionality. They would fall into the even dumber category.
In the last 2 years, I moved from Nokia N95 --> Blackberry Curve --> Samsung Vibrant (Android 2.1). As a phone, I feel I have downgraded with each move: **NOKIA** had excellent phone reception, voice, speaker, and response. There was no lag when you want to end a call and when you press the green button, the phone stops whatever it is doing and switch to back to being a phone. **BLACKBERRY** to some degree same as Nokia, but the batter life and reception and voice quality were a little worse. I had to carry a charger just in case I have made a 1 hr phone conversation or conference. **ANDROID** using it as a phone is sometimes frustrating. The phone function acts like another app. Huge lag. Reception is not as bad as my coworker's iphone4, but noticably worse than the other phones I had. My office is in the middle of a plant area and I usually get one bar without standing up (will all the phones) but still people heard me better with Nokia and Blackberry. So if I guess if I really needed “a phone,” then going smartphone would be a compromise. But since most my mission critical communication were replaced by email and SMS and even social interaction had moved to FB, I am caring less about my phone function. I only got an Android for the apps, the big screen, and faster processor. It really replaced carrying my laptop and kindle everywhere I go, even using them at home. But, I have to keep my power adapter on me all times.
At several hundreds of dollars, those phones are more expensive then many desktop computers. At they are slower and have a worse screen and keyboard.
Of course, one could pay for it by installments, AKA the 5 year contract. But taking 5 years to pay for something that will be obsolete in a year is sub-optimal.
They don't need e-mail, or GPS, or *blahblahblahblahblah*.
Seriously. Were my job not providing me with a smartphone, and as cool as some of the things it can do are, I'd have some dumb, cheapie cell. Not because I can't afford it, but because I don't really care about all the "extras".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
But alas, what about my data needs? WiFi. Work has one. *McDonalds* has one.
Wi-Fi isn't in a carpool, bus, or train unless you pay per month for a MiFi device or a smartphone that supports tethering. So if you want to work on something while you are a passenger, you have to plan your work carefully. You have to choose applications that don't depend on phoning home to a server.
I miss the first dumbphone I had with Sprint, made by Nokia. It was a rock and even had free games like Nibbler, but I lost it, and the parents switched to Verizon.
I've noticed with each new version, Verizon has removed or downgraded basic features to fill their phones up with more "pay as you go" services like Media Center, Photo storage services, etc. The first version I had came with a decent camera and flash, now no flash and I can't get a good photo in broad daylight. And for what could be only pernicious reasons, they removed the ability to set T9Word to default, and the ability to link a shortcut to Notepad. My phone's Notepad is now maxed out at about 100 sentence-length notes. Also, there's no SIM card and, other than using their paid services, I can't get information to/from the phone without ordering a special cable on Ebay.
1) Cost, dear lord that data plan is stupid expensive.
2) I got a RAZR back in the day, it's great, IT'S SMALL. Phones these days are just not getting smaller like they used to. I like the half inch thick, 4 inch long size, I'd like it even better if I could get it narrower, but now-a-days getting a flip phone is hard enough, and they are all bigger than the RAZR I currently own.
3) I am out of contract, I own my phone, and don't feel like indenturing myself unless I have to. I also have a better rate that I am grandfathered in with and would hate to loose if I got a new plan (one with data). I plan to buy a new battery for my phone soon, the one I have seems to be losing charge too fast.
I pay $20 per month for cable internet
Comcast in Fort Wayne, Indiana, doesn't offer an Xfinity Internet plan that cheap, except as an introductory rate that expires after six months, after which time the rate increases to $60 per month. It does offer a $26.95 "economy" plan at 1.5 Mbps down and 384 Kbps up, designed for people stepping up from dial-up.
work pays for the unlimited plan.
My employer is a small business that doesn't offer this.
My aircard is $0 per month (again paid for by work, because I need to be able to connect to the corporate network at all times).
What kind of personal use policy does your employer impose? For example, are NSFW sites banned?
I don't have a PVR but do use Netflix with unlimited streaming
Netflix isn't good for sports. Or do you stick to only the games shown on antenna TV?
They should have stuck to their strategy, now they have been gutted by the Microsoft EEEEcosystem
I've used a RZR for years. I've destroyed one with water damage, lost a couple, and I always replace it with the same thing. My monthly plan costs $28. I only have to charge it once every couple of days and it has more features than I want (camera, texting).
Would an iPhone or Android be neat to have? I guess. But I really don't need one and the costs associated with an upgrade just aren't worth it. Plus, everyone I know with 'smart phones' are constantly in need of an outlet to recharge their power-sucking monstrosities.
If my phone breaks or I lose it, it costs me less than a month of data on a smartphone to replace.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Only the Phone Companies and Phone Makers Call them Smart Phones since the cost of purchase and cost of maintenance are ridiculously expensive, which translates into profits = smart.
Its the users who must have a smart phone because they are too dumb to recognize they are dumber than their phone.
Seriously, for my wife and I to have smartphones with dataplans that make sense, I'm out $1440 USD per year. That's just stupid. Admittedly, we already pay $840 / yr for our current plans, but saving $50/month adds up.
The "free" ones my wife and I got from T-Mobile recently have all those features.
They also probably came with a $40 per line per month voice plan. I currently make so few calls on my dumbphone, mostly to arrange rides, that I have to pay only $60 per year to Virgin Mobile USA.
I'll wait until we get smart networks that catch up to smart phones. Right now they are just a bunch of thieves cashing in on overselling their network infrastructure. Not to mention their abuse of the definition of "unlimited" borders on the criminal.
REALLY?
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
Ok, I know there are now less expensive data plans. But the point is the same: I just don't see the value in the data plans. If/when things are reasonably priced, I may consider it.
My wife and I both used Palm Pilots before we could get them bundled with our phone. We both had Palm phones until they broke (screens - yeah, we shoulda had cases) and Verizon insisted we could not replace them without a data plan. @#$% you, Verizon.
As with many people, I work in a building with an elevator. Have you ever noticed that these days, the first thing people do when they get into an elevator is reach for their phone to look at something... anything other than making eye contact or talking with people in the elevator? Especially the younger generation (18 - ~25). it's funny to watch them read through messages that they've already read just so they don't have to socially interact face to face with someone they really don't know.. Of course.. I like to push them out of their "comfort zone" and talk to them. :)
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
Moving to a smartphone from my Sony-Ericsson W995 would be a massive downgrade.
My phone can do all the usual 'trendy' stuff like internet, playing media, 3d gaming, GPS etc, but it also has an 8.1 mpixel camera, an FM radio, real buttons, removable storage (micro SD), it doesn't implement DRM, or lock you into any particular app store or even require you to have a data plan (I dont),. It has an easily replaceable/affordable battery, and its size is MUCH more pocket friendly than a smartphone. Its cheaper too.
.
Now why would I want a 'smart'phone again?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Honestly, I feel like I would get LESS done if I had a smartphone. I am a lowly code monkey (I mean "software engineer"), so I don't have any business needs to be addressed immediately such that I would benefit from receiving emails on my phone. Plus, I already have a hard enough time not trolling the internet at work... imagine if I didn't have to avoid facebook and the like. And if my phone had a StumbleUpon app? Game over. It's just a distraction.
I have dumb phones for my kids (started when they were 10 & 11, they are 12 & 13 now). One jumped in the pool last summer with one, the other lost it playing light sabers in the front yard (climbing trees, hiding in the bushes, riding bikes). Our thought is it dropped from his pull-over pocket (dumb place to put it) and someone walking by stole it. The phone wasn't on silent/vibrate, and when calling it it just rang and rang at first, but we cannot hear it anywhere, but then now it goes right to voicemail.
Anyway, the point is I was able to replace both phones for ~20 buying used models of the same and $15 activation fee. I'll continue to have dumb phones for my kids until they pay for their own.
$10/year T-Mobile prepay.
Yes, that's $10 per YEAR.
I look at the multitude of senior citizens out there who carry phones - and wouldn't be able to even place a call with most smartphones. Not a huge surprise that so many are still "dumb" phones. Also consider the cost - most people on planet earth just cannot pay the extra thirty bucks a month or so for internet capabilities/data plans.
A smart phone is a quick communicator. It performs short quick tasks very well. It's also >4 ounces and I can carry it in my pocket, and I'm up on the go everywhere and don't have the time or patience to carry around or worry about a satchel. I don't have 2 minutes to find a place to put down a laptop, plug in my headphones and take a phone call. I can't easily switch between play lists while I'm walking down the street with a laptop. I can't tap out a 2 sentence email without sitting down and opening a laptop. I don't know about you but I find holding a phone in my hands rather than trying to balance a netbook on my knees or one hand is a lot easier when I'm on the can.
If you move from place to place and are relatively sedentary while in that place and need to do extended work, a laptop or netbook works great. But a smartphone is lighter and if you don't need to type out lots of code or a dissertation, then it works great. Ironically, compared to a full desktop computer, a laptop is a toy! I find when I'm out, a smart phone is enough, but my work has a desktop PC for me, and I have a desktop computer at home. I feel laptops, and even more so netbooks, slow me down and are "toy like" because the keyboards are cramped, you don't have a real mouse (touchpads , and they are not as powerful. If I want to get work done that requires a stretch of concentration, I want to use my desktop at home or work, not a laptop. Heck if I take my laptop outside on a nice day, I'll get distracted daydreaming and looking at the scenery and not get any work done.
It's all relative to what you do. No one device fits everyone perfectly. And in truth, aren't all these things toys in some way shape or form? Your setup works great for you, I'm glad, but your setup won't work for me so I think that detracts from your argument when imply everyone should simply have your setup, that's too broad a paint brush.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
And my dumbphone is not subject to warantless police searching either - what are you going to get? My mother's phone number?
For me, and many of my co-workers, smart phones are simply too fragile. Physically, they can't handle our work environment (industrial plant). Those that do buy them are the ones that never leave the office. ;)
If they make one that is armored for rugged use, I might consider one. Being able to VNC, etc. via a smart phone sized device would be very nice.
She's a relatively-intelligent (this is why I'm posting anonymously... Slashdotters, if you ever get a girlfriend, never let her hear you refer to her as "relatively" intelligent) college grad, but she likes to keep things simple and thinks smartphones are just overpriced toys for gadget geeks.
Every time I do something with my iPhone that could justify its use, she points at it and loudly pronounces, "TOY!"
If I'm driving and we decide we want to find a new restaurant, I hand her the phone and ask her to look one up on Yelp, and she gives me the look of death and refuses to take the phone.
When her Samsung dumbphone died, AT&T tried to give her a Smartphone at some ridiculously low price, but she still opted for a $9 dumbphone, and she was delighted when I discovered there was no way to import ring tones. Some people just believe that a phone should be a phone, and nothing else.
Apart from having evanescent battery life, smartphones kill productivity and turn co-workers into semi-functional zombies with the attention spans and memories of gnats. You can communicate an important message to a Blackberry-wielding colleague using clear, simple words, and 20 seconds later they can't repeat what the message was.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
android, "awesome" ?
have you *seen* the list of defects it has? have you seen how seriously badly engineered it is? i bought a motorola milestone hoping, eager, that it would be a good replacement for my sony ericsson c702 (And siemens sx1 and s75, c65, a31, c55, nokia e63... etcetcet). it's the absolute worst piece of crap i've ever touched. hell, my decades old hp48 is much more dependable than this. i can't trust it to send an sms to the correct receipient, it doesn't even have correct delivery notification. set aside that it can't record without missing seconds of video and a myriad other annoyances that a 500MHz 256MB device SHOULD. NOT. HAVE. it takes longer to boot than my netbook! it takes roughly as much as my DESKTOP.
I usually do not post here but I am a firm believer in dumb phones. I like the fact their are simple, they work and the battery life rocks. I have a Nokia E55 and is great but I always go back to my Nokia 6303c or Nokia 3720. They are just working. I had blackberry, Iphone for 3 days and just can not stand to be with it in hand all the time and check messages. Life passes by every time I had a smart phone.
With my dumbphone, i can do what no smartphone user can do: club someone to death with it! without crying because it cost 500$ to replace afterwards!
The US never saw intense use of SMS the way other countries did. So our rude phone users went straight from loud phone calls and ring tones to crackberries, mobile email on "J2ME feature phones", and now smart phones. And we still have a strange number of people who seem utterly resistant to any form of text messaging, instead impinging with voice calls for all matter of short messages.
Mobile web stuff was also so shoddy with WAP here that it didn't take off until phones could browse regular websites. I remember a time when most visible mobile data use was in places like airports and cafes, where people tethered their phone to their laptop and used the laptop to access network resources. People didn't sit around staring into their phones.
Most of us who used SMS were actually using it appropriately and with restraint, i.e. to signal our arrivals somewhere or that we would be late but were in route. Hardly anybody used it conversationally, as it was too expensive for that. So, the people who always played with their phones tended to either be checking for missed calls/voicemail/SMS in a noisy environment, actually receiving constant calls, or getting push email.
I'd rather be spending the $1000/year on something other than a wireless data plan. Maybe a new used car every 10 years, or a nice flat screen TV for every room of my house every 4 years, or 5 Xbox 360's for friends and family *every* year, new carpeting for the house, a new garage door or patio. There's so many things to be doing with that money.
Pay as you go keeps me connected enough for less than $5/month.
I think most people just enjoy getting a free phone with a cheaper contract with no data plan (set # of minutes/texting).
Dumbphones are great, till you've actually used a smartphone. It's hard to convey the smartphone experience to dumbphone users - it's more than just email, web and apps - it's a paradigm change that speeds up your access to information from 10s of seconds to seconds. With this dramatic change, you start going about your business and life differently.
how do you recommend that someone start a conversation with a stranger [on the bus]
Pass them a beer?
No eating or drinking is permitted on city buses. Now what?
Like me.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Conversely, I have had lunch with "dumb phone" users that leave their phones on the table and text several times a minute; a behavior that seems much more common with my niece/nephew and other people under 20. I'm not sure the problem is that "smart phones" are changing everything, I think it's changing social norms with respect to the trade-off between physical and digital presence. It'd be nice if the pendulum swings back a little, but I wouldn't count on it.
Data is digital, is 1 or 0. Voice is digital, is either 1 or 0. Difference?
Voice has tighter latency requirements and more even transmission speed over the course of a connection: it'll stay around 13 kbps each way. Data generally has greater bandwidth requirements and generally bursty transmission. Online gaming tends to be more like voice than like data though.
how do you recommend that someone start a conversation with a stranger [on the bus]
Pass them a beer?
No eating or drinking is permitted on city buses. Now what?
Like that's going to stop us.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
(1) Smart phones are more expensive short term, (2) Smart phones are wayyyyy more expensive long term (data plans), (3) Not everyone needs or wants mobile internet, (4) There is a lot to be said for a phone that makes and answers calls with absolute reliability, (5) has a simple interface, and (6) will last a week on one charge.
So yeah, I can see the appeal. Although my Droid X doesn't drop more than three or four calls a week, I'm getting a little tired of having to charge it every day, regardless of the cool geeky things it can do. And finally, internet over cellular has come a long way in the last ten years, -- it's definitely out of the "amazing it works at all" category -- but it's still nowhere near the performance you get with just about any ground based broadband connection (even over wifi).
When it comes right down to it, dumb phones still work better as a phone than do smart phones. We put up with the drawbacks of the smart phone because we're all geeks here and we appreciate the things a smart phone can do, but we need to understand that the great majority just want to call grandma.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I live very close to work
Not everyone can afford that kind of real estate. Not everyone can afford a car; many depend on the bus and have a half hour to burn to and from work and to and from shops. Nor does everyone work close to where the significant other works and where the kids go to school.
Phones run on a 3-4 year life cycle, because that is what people's contracts on North American plans run at.
What carrier has a four-year contract?
Most US carriers top out at two years. Dumbphones tend to be cheaper, so they're often free with only a 1-year contract. The fact that they're free with a 1-year contract, or cheap even with prepaid service, explains their popularity.
The Archos 4.3 looks about right but it's not here (as far as I know).
I live in Indiana and ordered an Archos 43 Internet Tablet from Archos.com earlier this year. This PDA's resistive touch screen works better with a stylus than a finger and doesn't work with games requiring multitouch (such as many console emulators), and it comes with the limited selection of AppsLib and needs to be hacked to install Android Market (which I've done), but I'm finding more and more ways that it can replace my old homebrew-enabled DS Lite.
My wife and I nearly moved to smart phones, but the sticker shock from a $30 data plan for each phone changed our minds.
I'm just not gonna pay the absurd prices they want for data. Not $30 for unlimited, and not $10 for 25MB.
Never stopped me...
I consider myself very tech savvy. I'm a professional programmer, yet I honestly don't get the smart phone. Sure, they're fun to play with, but they are a pain in the ass to do anything meaningful on, due to the lack of full keyboards and the small screen real-estate. They also cost a bundle, and I tend to drop, wash, or otherwise abuse my cellphone all the time. All that stuff aside, I would still purchase a smartphone if it wasn't for the ridiculous data plans. There is no way that I am going to pay $40-$80 bucks a month for slow internet on a device with a tiny screen. Without a data plan, a smart phone is a bulky, expensive, little device that is just waiting to be broken, and requires constant charging.
4) At least one game? CHECK
Please allow me to revise this rule: "4) At least one game worth playing? CHECK". The games included on feature phones that I've seen fall into two classes: A. those which are easy to grow tired of (such as Solitaire), and B. the control is clunky (such as Tetris, which came on a cousin's TracFone but really needs a PC keyboard or a Nintendo-quality gamepad).
Why should I watch videos on a tiny screen? There are actual big TVs now.
Because you're not at home; you're sitting on a bus or in the back seat of a carpool waiting for it to arrive at home or work. Or you're sitting in the store waiting for the bus to show up. But then a PDA like the Archos 43 can handle those situations almost as well as a phone can.
I for one don't like to condense all my tools/toys into a single device. I like my games on my DS, my phone in my cellphone, my e-mail and internet in my laptop and my important documents/files/backups at my computer at home. That way if one crashes, I'm not completely screwed. if I drop my DS while I play a game, I don't lose access to my phone and internet. Its also usually cheaper (since most people I know who have a smart phone also have portable game systems and laptops), leads to more battery life for each individual device and usually more quality in each individual device (I'd much rather have a full keyboard and google than any "local information app" or "map app").
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Find a mobile operator that will charge you by the minute only?
In the United States, one typically buys a phone from the operator, and such operators tend to carry a full line of feature phones but zero or a handful of smartphones. Virgin Mobile USA only recently started offering the Android-powered Samsung Intercept phone.
Before digital watches we didn't know that our watches were analog. Now that there are smartphones I find that I am the proud owner of a dumbphone.
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
I own a "dumb" phone. I also own three desktop computers and a laptop. I figure the primary use for any cell phone is to make calls, and if I need to make sure I'm connected to the Internet while I'm away from home, I have either my laptop or any other number of possibilities (i.e., local library, Internet cafe, friends' computers, etc.) to get connected. I use my cell phone to make calls, because that's what it's primary use is.
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
What has happened to slashdot? You should embrace change like you've always done
Some people just don't want to pay that extra $15/$30 per month. If there were no additional charges for smartphone use, data, etc. they would be expanding faster.
Of course, device cost is also a factor, but that's dropping fast, and less of an issue to the average consumer from carriers who subsidize the cost of the device.
-Dave Haynie
I have a data-capable plan for my smartphone that costs £20.50 a month. That's about $33. It's a low-end plan, so I only get around 100 minutes + 100 texts or something like that, but that's fine as I don't make a lot of calls on it. I get 1GB of data per month.
The really expensive plans in the uk are around £45 / month (around $70).
These prices include 20% VAT (sales tax).
Why is it so expensive in the US?
I pay about $40 for my internet connection at home. On that connection is my desktop. Wife's laptop, Daughters Laptop and my Desktop for my other 2 kids. The internet connection is fine considering 90% of what happens on it is web surfing and 10% media streaming. And even streaming a HD movie doesnt stop my wife from getting on facebook. I can upload/download surf as much as I want...
Now to get my entire family connected on cell phones would be 5x $30 data plan...see the disconnect? and that would be capped and probably used up by Iphone/Android. Especially if my daughter uses it for facebook... Until they have a reasonably priced family data plan it aint happening.
Untill battery tech can offer me a smartphone that lasts a week of average use I'll be sticking with a "dumbphone". Having used a smartphone for a year and then reverted to a dumbphone it was nice to be able to neglect plugging it in every night and not having to worry about it dropping dead midday.
It's a matter of price I'm pretty certain. Without contract subsidies, dumbphones in my area (West Florida, USA) run 30-40 dollars. Some are cheaper, a handful are a little more expensive. WITH a contract, dumb phones are often completely free. Smartphones can be had for as little as $200 with a contract, or $500-$700 without. Smart-phones often generally carry premium pricing over and above a simple data plan. When people can get a Samsung vibrant or Motorola droid, or even an iPhone5 for 50 bucks with no contract subsidy, I think you'll see dumbphones wane. Right now they're still a toy for the "wealthy".
I begged my mom to not get herself a smart phone... the reason? I still have to explain the difference between click, double click, and right click to her once every couple months.
She can manage to make phone calls and has even managed to text me several times, but until she stops buying new memory cards for her camera each time it gets full and until she actually even once uses the iPod touch my sister gave her, a smart phone is sooo not going to solve any problem for her, but will cause many.
The Digital Sorceress
I want a tablet with a data plan. It could be my phone and my portable computer.
But, it is specifically AT&T's fault I choose not to. Here's why.
1.) limitation on bandwidth: I expect to use 5 gigs of data a month. This puts me right on the borderline of what will cost me hidden fees.
2.) Hidden fees: They abound. If I could get a straight answer on what it would cost, I would gladly pay for a data package. They lie about what the cost will be. I don't pay hidden fees. So I can't get a data package.
3.) Crippled hardware: Of the android OS devices I wanted, almost all are crippled in one way or another. The worst is when AT&T sells devices without a wireless chip and doesn't tell you. They did that to me with my blackberry, and it pissed me off.
4.) Crippled software: How many data carriers block access to parts or all of the Android Market in favor of a contractually obligated private market?
5.) Trust: Because AT&T isn't up front with costs and feature limitations, I don't believe them when they tell me what they could get. They are liars, and normally I wouldn't do business with liars. Luckily for me, I sublease my phone contract with someone else, so I'm only in a 6 month pre-paid contract with a friend. If it weren't for this, I'd be 100% prepaid phone service.
also: http://www.betanews.com/article/ATT-sued-over-iPhone-data-overbilling/1296585365
And here I was thinking I was being a nonconformist for not having a smart phone... Damn...
They're expensive and time-wasting toys.
Some people would rather have a single-function device than pay a few hundred for a mini-computer...
Other than that I hardly use mobile data over wifi.
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If you have a smartphone that's on 2G, your data use can result in missed calls.
This means they could be worse (data disconnect still happens in some areas even for 3G-enabled devices that fall-back to 2G).
The smartphone (since the iPhone) is more a data-driven mobile device that happens to make calls rather than the other way around.
I know someone who has an iPod touch and a trusty multi-SIM dumbphone. He seems to enjoy it quite well.
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Nothing worse than aging geeks, really.
Smartphones are replacing computers for more and more people. That's all.
I've been lugging around a Nokia dumbphone and an iPod touch for three years. And a compact camera now and then. Now I have an iPhone and need just one device instead of two or three. And I can get at the net whenever I want (which is not always, but whenever I want or need I can). I like that very much. Dumbphones are still too expensive and too heavy and too large for what they're doing. Which is hardly anything.
Or rather, I can write that article in 5 words: "Dumbphones are cheaper. The end."
I just wish data were really, really cheap. Why is it I can talk for literally dozens of hours per month for free on nights and weekends but any amount of data costs a ton? (I know the answer to that one: "Because they can.") My wife will soon be getting an iPhone and she'll get a lot of use out of it overall (especially the camera and a calendar, to say nothing of whatever random apps she might get) but the minimum data plan ($15/mo for 200MB, aka $180/yr, on AT&T in the U.S.) is a bit much. Something like $5/mo for 50 MB would be perfect for her. I could get a used iPhone and just add it like a regular phone with no data plan but SOME data would be handy, i.e. for Maps and stuff. Grr...
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
With ATT/iPhone you can get a single-line $55/mo plan (450min + 200MB data). That's a whole lot less than $120. Our family plan runs $130/mo for 2 iPhones with unlimited data.. we could probably shave $30/mo off that by going reduced data (which is totally possible if I give up Pandora). Compare to my pre-iPhone verizon plan, we had 2 non-data phones for $75/mo (including 10% employer discount). So, for $30/mo more, we get iPhones and limited data... and for $60/mo more, we have unlimited data. Neither of use text messaging to a great extent, so we don't pay the extra fee.
Not quite the usurious rates you mention above... in our case, it is completely worth it.
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Have you ever noticed that these days, the first thing people do when they get into an elevator is reach for their phone to look at something... anything other than making eye contact or talking with people in the elevator?
Not sure about you, but I've always found it hard to speak to someone in an elevator... It's like speaking to someone in the airplane seat next to you. Some folks do it. Many folks don't. It's not like this is new.
You might want to make sure you're not imagining some fantasy past here.
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... the words "in the USA"
Denizens of /. have been bitching about cellphones for years (like the article that http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24412&cid=2648059 is attached to). It used to be "I don't need a cellphone because". Now it's "I don't need a smartphone because". There are lots of things that people don't need, but they still buy them because once they've actually seen them they might actually find them useful.
Not need; want. I don't have to carry them around, but I enjoy my devices. A smartphone could serve the function of several of these devices.
Dumb phones are more popular than smart phones because dumb phones are better. They are better in general, and they are certainly a much better deal in terms of price. It seems obvious to me. I'll buy a smart phone as soon as one is worth the cost. So far, none have been worth it.
AT&T's dumbphones, at least, (all two of them) have hardkeys that can't be remapped from data-consuming navigation programs and web portals. They love the data plan and its accompanying profit source - you fat finger one of those, and you're on the hook for $3ish. The smartphones are the carrot, and their current dumbphones are the stick.
I actually want to get an Android phone. And before that, I wanted an iPhone. I didn't get the iPhone because I didn't want a 2-year contract and at the time they wouldn't let you just buy the phone. You had to get it with a contract and a discount. And I don't have an Android phone yet because they force users to get an unlimited data plan. The four of us share a single phone plan with 500 "anytime" minutes and a fee for each text message and each kilobyte of data. We have done just fine with that for several years, only talking to people with the same phone company, or after 9:00 except for critical phone calls. Most of the time I would be on my Wi-Fi for the Internet anyway. The only reason I would need unlimited talk, text, or data is because that's the only way to get the phone.
Further, with the Galaxy Tab I'm considering getting, I'd be paying at least as much as I paid for my laptop and get a device that has less processing power and no USB ports. And there's another big factor that keeps getting overlooked. You can update a laptop any time you want. My Dell Inspiron 8200 from the year 2000 is running Linux from 2009. Try getting the phone company to get you the latest version of Android. that's one area in which the iPhone is clearly better. You get system updates without having to jailbreak.
But basically, I'm saying people like me still use a "dumb" phone because "smart" phones are overpriced, can't be easily upgraded, and aren't all that smart anyway.
I have a Motorola Droid I bought used for just over $200 that came with ALL the accessories, and about 12 cases I won't use because I love the alarm clock docking station so much. I don't have any sort of plan with any carrier, and use Skype over wifi for my phone. All in all it costs $38 a year ($30 for unlimited landline/mobile Skype calling, $8 for a dedicated phone number others can call you back at). Skype can be flaky and disconnect itself if I leave wifi range and not reconnect, but I'd rather deal with slight inconvenience than $50+ a month for basically the same shit. I can always call someone back, but I can't rebudget already spent money.
I also rooted it and have it set to underclock itself when the screen goes off, which saves an impressive amount of power. I can easily go 3-4 days without charging my phone, assuming I don't go on a sudoku or emulator fest, but I also use my phone as my alarm clock (can't do that with an iPhone ya know), so it charges every night while I sleep. Thus I can and usually do play the myriad games, as my cheap Droid phone doubles as a handheld gaming system.
I also love my craigslist notification app which auto searches free stuff in my area and immediately notifies me. It can make the difference when someone is giving away a big screen tv.
I hate phones in general, and visibly cringe when it rings, but there is nothing dumb about appreciating a tool for how it can be used, and utilizing it in the best way possible. It's awesome being able to make phone calls for a whole year for less than most people pay in a month. Most people just associate having a phone == having phone service. Dumbphones do perpetuate that notion by necessity.
Let me summarize: You are all a bunch of dildos.
Twitter - cost to message a friend? 0$
Google maps instead of calling friend for direcitons 0$
Responding to an email whilst on public tranport - saving me time since I'm doing nothing else
Facebook - see twitter
Buying newspaper for weather or checking weather app?
I can send an SMS for tram update information - 55c or open tram tracker.
(Tram = Cable car, kinda)
Etc etc etc.
I've always been a tightass with SMS, now I'm even tighter.
(They cost about 25c EACH in Australia, unless you have plans with more allowance of them)
I have over 40 years in and around the computer business.
I used punched paper tape, punched cards, manual binary entry (switches and buttons), TTY input, Micr, 4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 60, 64 and sundry odd other bit computers. I have been surfing the net since before enough of the audience was born. I tweaked windows (until I got sick of it at XP) am now running Ubuntu.
I have used PDAs (Palm) and other devices
I am not tech shy.
Big reason I don't use a stupid smart phone?
The technology doesn't scare me. But, I just want an effen phone. I don't want the garbage and lack of security that goes with the stupid 'smart' technology.
Being secure, on the internet, while at home, with what I have and try to use, is not always easy.
If you are ignorant enough to add all the 'Twitter/Facebook-et al' it is impossible. Everything you disclose to 'friends' is also disclosed to 'not really your friends'... and there a thousands of stories out there about that.
I want a phone... not 100 gee-gaws that mean nothing to me. If I need it, some day, I may have a camera handy (DSI XL, you know). But, if I lose my phone my whole life is not in someones hands...
Enjoy... My specialty was computer security... and I knew how to write 'virii' before most of your daddies were born... But, I don't.
I've recently moved from "oldschool" Nokia (on S40) to iphone 4.
What I miss the most is that I could have unlocked nokia without looking at it and dial a few selected people with just one button pressed (and I memorised that pressing and holding 2 for two seconds called my wife, etc). And I was able to do it when drunk or not fully woke up.
On iphone I may be able to unlock phone without looking, but navigating without looking could be very tricky and result in doing something completely surprising (for you and perhaps for other people).
You sound like a spineless pansy.
The 'dumbphone' segment of the market is where there is no margin on devices, that are sold cheaply, subsidized, or given away for free or nearly free, and where the lowest ARPU clients are.
That's an odd definition of 'dominate' unless the only thing you're interested in is counting phones. I suppose some people might be interested in just counting the phones, and not looking at anything else...
"But there’s more to life than apps and games" ...like reading sky mall and staring out the window for four hours.
Here in the Netherlands, I receive a monthly cost of about 7 euros per month for my HSPA+ connection with Vodafone NL. This is with a prepaid SIM card, anonymous (they do not ask for name, ID card, or address, much less an SSN equivalent). Sure, the handheld computer itself will indeed cost 400 to 600 dollars for a non-contract ownership, but it's a mistake to think of it as anything other than a computer purchase. Similarly speced laptops cost this much, so why wouldn't a much smaller form factor not cost at least this much, if not far more considering the engineering feats required to make the computer fit in your hand?
Your estimations of paying for "data capable plan" in the USA are wildly off as well. Non-contract obligations for T-Mobile USA (with FlexPay) start at $60/month last I checked, and this provides unlimited SMS and HSPA+ data connections (although with speeds slower than generally available in The Netherlands).
Maybe you should think about leaving the two largest, most blatantly evil telecom corporations in the USA (Verizon or AT&T) and begin to analyze costs and benefits associated with locking yourself into 2-year contracts to get a simple mobile Internet plan. Almost any other country has prices wildly below your USA-based figures, and even if you play your cards right in the USA you will be paying far less.
How about using the proper tool for the job at hand? I take my iPhone everywhere and it fits in my pocket -- something your netbook cannot do. I'd be carrying a dumb phone of approximately the same size and weight anyhow, so it's no loss there. But the gain is enormous: many different kinds of geolocation tasks (driving directions, finding restaurants nearby, etc), quick data lookup (comparing prices online, looking for reviews, Dropbox files, etc), entertaining games when needed (have you ever played dumb phone games?), and even considering the tasks that a dumb phone does, the iPhone does them mostly better (address book and synchronization, text messaging, etc).
If I need something larger, I can carry my iPad. If I need something more industrial-strength I'll carry a full-on 17" laptop, not some half-laptop netbook. Netbooks are lose-lose: they don't have the form factor of an iPad or smart phone, but they don't have the capabilities or quality of a laptop. I wouldn't say the same thing about dumb phones, however: if all you want to do is make occasional calls and receive occasional calls a dumb phone can be a great choice: more rugged than smart phones, less costly if it is lost or damaged (and less dangerous as it contains less information), more compact than a smart phone, etc.
In any case, the proper tool for the job is a good philosophy, and a smartphone can be that tool for many. Especially for someone who doesn't want the inconvenient form factor of a cheap netbook and doesn't want to have to carry a "satchel" with them if they don't have to.
Children often don't have cell phones because they lack the money to pay the difference between the monthly price of one land line and the monthly price of adding several cell phones to a family plan. They lack money because the state doesn't allow them to have jobs.
You know how many calls I make on my iPhone every month? Almost none. I hate talking on the phone. I have the cheapest possible 'phone' plan I can get with this thing. Even 500MB of data is enough for me; since the connectivity is more about being able to access a few sites than streaming movies or whatever.
I have an iPhone instead of an iPod touch because I want a net-connected computer that I can fit in my pocket. I use the GPS basically every day while I'm riding, I track my calories, email, etc.
A dumbphone is the worst possible solution for me because it ONLY DOES THE THING THAT I HATE.
I wish I had a smartphone. But smart or not it has to perform the mobile phone function as well. When I have to recharge it everyday that doesn't leave me much mobility. For smart phones fans this may sound silly, but this is the main reason for why I do not buy a smart phone yet. I will wait until the battery cells and/or cpu power consumption are optimal enough to require at most one recharge per week .. like my dumb phone does. waiting ...
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/102/networkcabletobrain.jpg for a proof of it. [grin] Yes, I have a cat5 network cable connected to my brain. I can do my Internet in my sleep too.
However, I haven't gotten the wireless part to work though to be true 24/7. [grin] :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I'll tell you why dumbphones still dominate over smartphones. Ripoffs that's why, plain and simple.
On two separate occasions I've heard of friends or family being ripped off by those selling mobile phones.
First was myself. A company contacted me offering to sell me a mobile on a contract I felt was pretty good. I told them specifically that I did not want the insurance with the contract, but the caller put it through anyway. This is now under investigation.
My sister took out different one payment only insurance for her phone and was promised replacement for accidental damage. She dropped her phone in the toilet, which caused irreparable damage, so she made a claim. The insurance company told her that it would take 6-8 weeks for an engineer to look at the phone. When I searched online I found that this company was known for returning phones in a _more_ damaged state than they were previously, and not paying out. As my sister needs the phone for business contacts she couldn't wait all that time. It was pointless sending off the phone, but the company already had the premium. So sister decided to buy the cheapest (dumb) phone possible at GBP10 to replace the damaged phone.
What's the point in paying for an expensive phone when they rip you off with all this crap, refuse to pay up in circumstances clearly defined in the contract without a whole load of inconvenience, and then _the_cheapest_phone_ we could find supports all of the functions we need?
It's not the manufacturers, or the service providers at fault in the cases I know of. It's the greedy middlemen selling them on the main street that cause the problem.
Needless to say that when the contract comes up for renewal, we won't be under any circumstances.
I'll also be writing to the manufacturers and services providers to explain to them exactly why.
I have a MBP in my backpack, and a $10 Walmart GoPhone in my pocket. Why pay $80/mo for a souped-down computer in my pocket, when I already have a real computer in my backpack?
I eat at McDonalds. Come on, a rollup won't kill you. Then you use the wifi. I'm lovin' it.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I was an iPhone poweruser at one time, until I moved to a part of the country where AT&T was unavailable. I had no choice but to go to Verizon and get a dumbphone (I refuse to use a non-Apple smartphone.. I don't think Android, Symbian, BlackBerryOS, or WP7 are as good as iOS).
After a few weeks of adjusting, I'm doing perfectly fine with a dumbphone. Granted, I would love to be able to catch up on FB, Twitter and the Internet during breaks, but it's not worth the $30 data plan.
Now that the iPhone 4 is out on Verizon, the iPhone lust is back in my mind, but seeing as how I have saved hundreds without a data plan, I might remain a dumbphone user for a little while longer.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
A lot of people on here are complaining about smart phones being bad at making voice calls and I have to say, you're correct. However, I've never been a fan of voice calls. They're always at an inopportune moment and there's no body language to read. So, for me, a smart phone isn't about being a phone at all. It is however a device that I can carry on me at all times (I don't carry a man-purse so netbook+dataplan are out) that allows me instant access to search/wikipedia/gps/etc.
As far as the cries of "oh no, I can't afford a data plan", I totally get it. A lot of people probably can't afford $30/mo. That being said though, the *LOWEST* phone plan I could find without data would have cost me about $45/mo. That's just to make phone calls and do text messages. When I upgraded from the iphone 3G I gave it to my girlfriend and she could not have been happier to add $30/mo to her plan. I believe she said something along the lines of "I was paying $70/mo before for a phone that didn't do anywhere near as much".