What if smartphones did not exist today?

Back in the days, whenever a new phone was released in the market, people would almost always look at the design and form factor as a basis for their purchase. Today, the mobile OS plays a major role on a handset’s marketability.

The OS dictates whether a handset is a smartphone or not so what if we didn’t have them in the first place? Imagine a world without iOS, Android, WebOS, BlackBerry OS, WinMo or Symbian?

That leaves us with more affordable feature phones, handsets that does two things best — making calls and texting.

If that’s the case, I think the story of the mobile market is much different.

To give us an easier way to see at how that picture looks like, I’d go and check what’s the most common secondary phone people use these days. The second handset is usually there as a back-up and basically used to make calls or text messages.

So let’s put the curiosity to the test and do a little survey here — if smartphones were non-existent, which feature phone would you be using today?

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

56 Responses

  1. Avatar for Kinny Kinny says:

    My phone would be those Nokia’s with Qwerty keyboards and the super long battery life like my E72 in purple. I would call and text more

  2. Avatar for Sonofa Sonofa says:

    di naman siguro considered as smart phone ang itouch…

    so i think my gadgets would be an ipod touch 4 and a myphone dual sim dumb phone…

  3. Avatar for mike miz mike miz says:

    @bing come to think of it, dahil sa n97 ko, hindi ko na kailangan magbukas ng pc para magfacebook :| hindi ko na rin kailangan magdala ng laptop sa school para makapagfacebook sa wifi doon. dati, papatayin ko lang ang pc, nakakapagaral ako ng walang tempatation ng facebook..ngayon dahil lagi kong katabi ang cellphone ko, facebook na lang ng facebook kahit dapat nagaaral.

    I still use my first cellphone, a nokia 5110 as my backup (and nakaw phone). siya ang nasa bulsa ko pag nasa public transport, with my beloved smartphone tucked deep inside my bag full of papers.

  4. Avatar for Ving Ving says:

    I currently have the Samsung E1070 as my backup phone. It’s very basic as it only allows you to make calls and send texts. No camera or internet access. If smart phones didn’t exist today, I still be using a Nokia.

    @David
    I would say the SE K800i was one of the best phones I have owned until I made the mistake of upgrading to the K850i and sold the K800i. Big mistake!!

  5. Avatar for Mobile VoIP Mobile VoIP says:

    I currently have the Samsung E1070 as my backup phone. It’s very basic as it only allows you to make calls and send texts. No camera or internet access.

    If smart phones didn’t exist today, I still be using a Nokia.

    @David
    I would say the SE K800i was one of the best phones I have owned until I made the mistake of upgrading to the K850i and sold the K800i. Big mistake!!

  6. Avatar for Island Life Island Life says:

    I love the alcatel, I just forgot the exact model, my first cel phone. It can get clear signal even in areas where my companions having latest model units can hardly connect.

  7. Avatar for David David says:

    I’m still rocking an SE K800i.

  8. Avatar for bing bing says:

    What if smartphones did not exist today? Life should be better! Old school perhaps but smartphone as mainly made for productivity somehow undone my productivity. If you can’t control your “bad” habit with smartphone it will eat your productivity big time. Playtime with games-check, facebook-check, twitter-check, youtube-check, internet-check. Half of your time that could have been spent being productive has been burn by those. But my next smartphone will be business oriented one loaded with office productivity tools like like MS office,outlook in Nokia E7 ;)

  9. Avatar for ALFRED ALFRED says:

    My secondary phone is Nokia 1800… I find it so handy and very much satisfied with its features 4 d price I paid… Sobrang ok yung battery compared to my iPhone 3gs…

  10. Avatar for mr.bogus mr.bogus says:

    the nokia 3510 first polyponic nokia cp!!!

  11. Avatar for Ruben Umali Ruben Umali says:

    nokia 5510

    -qwerty phone
    -with mp3 player

  12. Avatar for cheftonio cheftonio says:

    My secondary phone is a Nokia 6300. Pldt wireless landline is a v3 razr

    :)

    -Sent via YugaTech Mobile App

  13. Avatar for pabs pabs says:

    of course it is Nokia 3310, I bought it in 1999 and it is still alive and still fucntions as my back up phone. I really love it.

  14. Avatar for dawnripper dawnripper says:

    maybe still using my greenhills moded no antenna/white backlight 5110 :) and still drooling over SE T210!

  15. Avatar for H H says:

    I have a myphone t23 as my back up phone. Its dual sim, very lightweight and the touchscreen is ok. I really like to be able to customize msg ang ring tones. Cant really do that with an iphone.
    -Sent via YugaTech Mobile App

  16. Avatar for surfmeister surfmeister says:

    my trusty ol’ SE W890.. radio, mp3 player, long battery life. can’t let go of it as my backup phone.

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