Weekly poll results: a surprising number of people are using feature phones

Feature phones are not as dead as you may have thought – one third of voters in last week’s poll use one at least occasionally. Some even use a feature phone full time as their only phone. And others are at least thinking about the idea of ditching their smartphone.

As some commenters point out, smartphones are basically a necessity in some countries – you might need one for messaging family and clients, for bank authentication and so on. Even so, some manage to get by with a feature phone as their only handset.

That said, a large portion of voters are never going back to feature phones – if they ever used one in the first place – while others tried it but couldn’t make it work.

Our second question was why people use feature phones. One very popular use case is as a second phone – yes, dual-SIM phones let you have multiple phone lines on one device, but having a separate device offers extra flexibility.

Keeping things simple is another popular reason – calling and basic texting is enough for some. Others lean into the limited feature set for the privacy benefits – smartphone apps tend to vacuum up personal data.

And yes, some have resorted to using feature phones to break their digital addiction – that is one of the most advertised benefits of modern feature phones. Price, battery life and aesthetics were relatively rare considerations, but for some, they were all that matters.

Feature phones have not gone extinct – and maybe they never will, especially with pretend feature phones that are really just locked-down Android devices. All the mainstream manufacturers have abandoned the genre, however, which leaves only smaller brands.