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Microsoft Hasn't Given Up On the Non-Smart Phones It Inherited From Nokia
jfruh writes: Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset business was mostly focused on gaining a hardware line that ran the company's Windows Phone OS; but in the process, Microsoft also gained ownership of some model lines that are classified as "feature phones" and some that are straight up dumb, and they're still coming out with new models, confusingly still bearing the "Nokia" brand. The $20 Nokia 105 as billed as "long-lasting backup device" and comes with an FM radio, while the $30 Nokia 215 is "Internet-ready" and comes with Facebook and Twitter apps.
It would actually make sense to use a smart phone as a digital assistant and carry these cheap phones for voice and text. Many of us still wear watches right? Same way, the smart phones are actually personal computers, it is better to have an independent device with its own long lasting battery for voice and text.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Fliptop is a nice form factor. I actually don't use most of the features of my Android, I think it's a pain trying to type and navigate on such a small screen.
are some advantages. If all someone wants is the ability to make calls dumb phones are a great choice. Many of my friends have them for elderly parents so the always have a phone handy. Using a smart phone touch screen can be overwhelming as the have to unlock it, touch the phone app, then dial using a non tactile screen. OTOH a dumb phone keys mimic the landline they have been using so it's simply a matter of making sure they know how to charge the phone and use green button to dial and red to hangup.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"Dumb phones" make great backup phones if the worst were to happen.
The main issue is whether you go with subscription or PAYG for said backup.
Both have advantages and disadvantages:
Sub costs more, but is always active given you are in range.
PAYG is cheaper, but you'd need to find a store to get a voucher, or if you were going somewhere, buy one in advance and you likely won't use it, so goes to waste anyway.
You'd think companies would be smart to allow a low-cost sub for use with backup phones ideas like this.
It could make them a lot of money, more than the free to decide wild west market that it is just now.
There's still a lot of money to be made from criminals and other folk who use burner phones.
They also tend to be more durable than a smartphone. You can carry it in a pocket or drop it with much less chance of damaging it. If you lose it you're out $20 rather than several hundred. I know contracters that use them for that reason as well as give them to employees for use on site for similar reasons.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Right after the acquisition, they decided to lay off the team responsible for the 'non-smart' phones so that all development funds can be channeled into the 'non-dumb' phones.
However, due to a glitch at accounting, they forgot to hand out slips or cancel payroll. The team members were already prohibited from mingling with the rest of the crew, lest some smartish feature creeps into the product ideation. So they lived their corporate lives unknowingly and developed the goodies and then it was too late.
With the costs of low-end Android handsets (even those aimed at the developing world) being so cheap these days, why does it still make sense for manufacturers to make a phone in between a "dumb phone" (that has no internet access, no installable apps, no Java and just does calls, text and maybe music playback and some built-in crappy games) and a full-on smartphone?
Whether or not you like smart phones, there are plenty of attributes that give basic phones with no bells and whistles a clear advantage, making them suited to purposes smart phones fail miserably in:
It all hinges on simplicity - Good designs tend to have a single purpose which makes the design simple, and all of the above advantages are a results of that attribute. My one annoyance with basic phones today is that their OS (while small and simple) are extremely pretentious, because the marketers (who might as well be designing the OS) think that everyone wants a smart phone.
Nokia is currently as good as basic phones get, but there is plenty of room for a better basic phone that is true to it's purpose, i'm not sure Microsoft is up to that task as they would probably be more interested in using basic phones as tool to channel users into buying smart phones.
I was one of the first people I knew to get a smart phone (Treo 270). I later had another smart phone, but I switched back to a dumb phone because it was less disruptive to my life. My problem is that I tend to use technologies when they're readily available to me. If I don't have an internet connection on my phone, I don't have the constant temptation to get on it and ignore the people I love.
What Microsoft really did was fund Nokia's purchase of Alcatel-Lucent.
Feature phones may not have anywhere near the capabilities of a smart phone, but they are good for for the base function of a phone. Making calls..... The ones that I have had in the past are practically impossible to kill. I've seen them run over by treaded vehicles, repeatedly dropped in water (and then dried), flat out dropped, etc and they still keep going and most of those phones weren't marketed as water/shock resistant phones. They boot up almost immediately, I've personally had ones that would last almost 2 weeks on a charge and they're dirt cheap. I've since moved to a low end smart phone but there are times where I think moving back to a feature phone may not be such a bad thing.
The cheap Nokia feature phones are very popular in developing countries.
They are inexpensive, durable, the battery last for many days, and they do the job. Moreover, accessories are dirt cheap as well.
Need a charger? Need a battery? They are sold in haberdasheries and corner stores for very little local money.
It would be really dumb if Microsoft just killed that revenue stream.
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Don't get me wrong, smart phones are nifty, but they are more like multi-purpose computers or tricorders now and they tend to be pretty shit at being phones.
It is ridiculously easy to hang up on someone by accident and the battery life is laughable at best.
I'm still using an ancient Nokia X2-00 - It is virtually indestructible and has survived being dropped multiple times, catapulted into a wall, being in a toilet and being sat on.
The battery lasts over a week *with* calls; Most smartphones barely last a day or two, and far less if you actually use the phone for actual phone stuff frequently.
I really want to replace my X2 as it is developing faulty Flash because I've had it so long (The corruption of stored text messages is quite amusing, but the sudden resets are not!).
The problem is, I want something similarly indestructible, that has at least a similar capacity for storing text messages, and a torch. The ability to use FM without needing headphones attached would be a nice bonus (Very useful at races and airshows as you can tune it into the show radio frequency to hear the commentary; The X2's speakers are ridiculously loud for such a small device!)
If anyone knows of something that might fit the bill, please post!
What I really want is a dumb phone with VoLTE and WAP mode. A WiFi connected device could handle everything else when needed.
Pay-As-You-Go phones don't have a monthly tariff.
One network, GiffGaff, you get free 0800 calls, free calls to other GiffGaff users for 6 months after you topup and you can even get free minutes for helping people. Calls are 8p a min though.
With the other one I use, 3, it's 3p a text, 3p a min to phone.
It's nice that there are cheap 2G phones in India, but I need a phone that works in the US, and wouldn't mind having a cheap phone that can also work in Europe. These days that means at least 3G, or maybe LTE, because the US carriers are phasing out 2G as fast as they can to recycle the spectrum. And it would be really nice to have a $30 spare dumb-phone to keep in the car or to use at times it's not convenient to keep my smartphone charged.
My last dumb-phone had a 2-week battery life. 90% of the time, I want a phone to make phone calls and send text, and I'd rather have something that's 1/4 as large as the pocket computer I'm carrying around. The other 10% of the time, I either want to check my email, or I want a camera, and yeah, I never bother using my camera any more, even though it takes better pictures than my phone, because it is convenient to only carry one device around.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's apparently more complicated than that. AT&T and Verizon have started offering it, on LTE phones, but it's rolling out slowly on a geography-by-geography basis, rather than being available everywhere at once.
* (Disclaimer: I work for AT&T, so I should probably know this stuff, but I do network security, not mobile phones.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Somebody else mentioned Bluetooth, and yeah, I do want that, because my car radio now supports it, so it lets me have a decent speakerphone in the car instead of having a wired headset, and that probably adds $5 to the cost of the phone.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks