Why Are Feature Phones Called Feature Phones If They Lack Features

 What Does Feature Phone Mean?

A feature phone is a type of mobile phone that has more features than a standard cellphone but is not equivalent to a smartphone. Feature phones can make and receive calls, send text messages and provide some of the advanced features found on a smartphone. Feature phones were primarily designed for consumers who want a multifunctional mobile phone but aren't willing to pay the higher prices associated with true smartphones. Feature phones are also known as dumbphones, a retronym to contrast them with smartphones.

 

Techopedia Explains Feature Phone Typically, a feature phone has the basic characteristics of a mobile phone and has capabilities such as a portable media player, digital camera, personal organizer and Internet access. In 2011, feature phones accounted for 70 percent of the mobile phones sold worldwide. Although there is no predefined difference between a feature phone and a smartphone, a feature phone doesn’t usually support add-on applications. It may also have limited processing and storage capacity and lack advanced multimedia and Internet connectivity options.

 

feature phone A cellphone that contains a fixed set of functions beyond voice calling and text messaging but is not as extensive as a smartphone. For example, feature phones may offer Web browsing and email, but they generally cannot download apps from an online marketplace. The "feature phone" moniker made sense when they were introduced in the late 1990s, because they included more functions than a regular cell phone. Today, the device is more a "featureless phone" compared to the ever-expanding functionality of a smartphone.

 

A feature phone is the industry term for a mid-tier phone: one notch below a 'real' smartphone. These devices can often sell very well and be heavily promoted by carriers.

They will probably have reasonable screens, support data services (including Facebook or IM) but with pre-installed clients and not allow an open app-download. They will have a less powerful processor and closed OS compared to the more expensive smartphones. As the market evolves, boundaries will move: what might have been described as a smartphone 2 years ago is a feature phone today.

 

A feature phone is a type or class of mobile phone that retains the form factor of earlier generations of mobile telephones, with press-button based inputs and a small non-touch display. They tend to use an embedded operating system with a small and simple graphical user interface, unlike large and complex mobile operating systems such as Android from Google or iOS from Apple. Feature phones typically provide voice calling and text messaging functionality, as well as basic multimedia and internet capabilities, and other services offered by the user's mobile network operator. The hardware of feature phones often include a backlit liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen, a hardware notification LED, a micro USB port, a physical keyboard, a microphone, a microSD card slot, a rear-facing camera to record video and capture pictures, and GPS services. Some feature phones include a rudimentary app store that includes basic mobile apps such as a calendar, calculator, mobile web, and mobile games.