Last year I bought a feature phone for my father Nokia 105 and I am going to tell you the advantages and disadvantages of using a Feature phone on basis of this. It was the best one for those who don’t know much about techs, like for your parents and old guardians. While I was giving this phone to my father a thought came to my mind, what if I used a basic feature phone? These days people also use a feature phone as a secondary phone. so if you are also thinking about using a basic feature phone as a secondary phone then I am going to tell you about the advantages and disadvantages of having a basic feature phone.

Is feature phone Better Than smartphone?

comparing a basic feature phone to a smartphone is not the worth. But using a feature phone has some pros and cons too. So let’s start with the phone specifications and then enter the advantages and then the disadvantages of having a feature phone.

So in my case, I have a Nokia 105 for reference and talking about specifications all the basic feature phone has kind of the same specifications with a tiny phone with a display of 1.77 inches. But has a thickness of 14.4 millimetres which is literally twice the size of that of an average smartphone in 2022. It also has a small removable battery of 800 milliamps, 4Mb ram and 4Mb ROM. It does not have any internet connectivity, no SD card so it can’t play or have media in it but it has a 3.5-millimetre headphone jack for the radio.

Advantages and disadvantages of using a feature phone

Advantages;

Great battery life:

Starting with the advantages of using a feature phone, first off its long-lasting battery life. The battery is only 800 milliamps and that number is incomparable to the current four thousand to five thousand and even six thousand milliamps which are on smartphones today. But smartphones come with large screens, they do a lot of tasks in the background, they have a lot of apps that give notifications all day while vibrating, and all that stuff. They have Bluetooth, location, on wi-fi or mobile data on, and all these things use a lot of power hence taking a ton of the battery so they drain the battery real quick.

An average person charges their smartphone twice within a 24 hour period. And with a basic feature phone need to charge it once or twice a week without problems with the low battery at all. In addition, when charging the phone with a 10 or 15-watt charger it takes a very short time due to its small capacity. Also all feature phones have removable batteries and so if the battery spoils or the capacity drops or something, it’s easier to replace.

Simplicity:

Another advantages of Using a feature phone is also simpler and very minimalist. You don’t need to learn how to use it, it’s pretty simple and straightforward.

You probably have seen videos of people switching from an iPhone to an android or an android to an iPhone and they have said that they took some more time to get adjusted to the UI of the new phone. But with a phone like this there’s no complicated mod or a different experience. it’s just simple just get your contacts, your phone messages, some simple games, basic settings, and that’s all. You don’t even need to learn to be able to use the phone even when unlocking the phone you just unlock it, it doesn’t get easier than that.

Fewer distraction:

Now, of course with the simplicity of the phone, you get fewer apps hence close to zero distractions. In this smartphone era, one of the best advantages of using a feature phone is fewer distraction.

Let me just give you an example, average smartphone user uses their phone for 6 to 8 hours in a day so around 7 hours of screen time on a day. Means 49 hours in a week. But if you replace your smartphone with a simple basic feature phone then you can do other work on that particular time. Because using a basic phone means saving the time. And any human being with extra 49 hours a week can do something very productive and can even earn from it. So you can get to do this when having a feature phone.

Money saving:

Another advantage of using a basic feature phone is that when you get using a feature phone it saves money. Let me give you an example of the using iPhone. Apple have got their own ecosystem where you spend a good amount of money just operating within it from services. Like apple music, and other services and also with any smartphone, you get to buy data plans and they cost a substantial amount of money. Another thing is the price of the phones, you can get a smartphone in every price category and this makes you really confused. But with a feature phone, you can just save a lot of money.

Disadvantages

Generally, this doesn’t mean that it’s a bed of roses when using a feature phone. There are a lot of disadvantages of using a feature phone. Let’s say when you’re stuck with the feature phone in the early 2000s, phones are just communication devices. But nowadays smartphones have become essential services and have been integrated to be part of our daily lives. We have now been conditioned to be study largely on smartphones that not having one seems more difficult than usual so some of these are the disadvantages.

No social media:

When using a basic feature phone especially as a primary phone. The first disadvantage is the lack of social media. As we already know that social media apps like Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, takes a lot of our time but they’re also important too. For example, all of my news I get from Twitter, most of my learning I get from youtube, most of my communication is from WhatsApp, and so on. And I can personally say that I need those apps because I’ll miss some important things if I don’t have them and with the basic phone you don’t get stuff like that.

The only way of communication is through messages or phone calls and the only way of getting used is through the radio and let’s be honest, it’s really hard to listen to the radio just for news. So I can say that with a basic feature phone I’ll miss out on some important stuff.

No camera:

Our phone cameras have also been part of our lives so currently. Most people use their phones to take photos and videos. Furthermore, phone cameras have improved greatly that there seems to be no need to get an expensive camera for just take some photos when the pictures that you take with your phone satisfy you. Most basic phones lack cameras and if they have cameras the photos that they take look like they’re from a pinhole camera. This is because the quality is so bad since no one buys a feature phone for its camera at least these days. So one of the disadvantages of using of a feature phone is you don’t get a camera with it.

Small size:

If you haven’t noticed the basic feature phone is extremely small with a display of 1 or 2 inches. So the smallest screen and the phone are also small that is why the keyboard is also very small. Being used to the aquatic keyboard on our screens pressing one button twice that is another disadvantage of having a basic phone. Basically, with a small phone like this, it takes you quite a long to used to it especially if you’re used to smartphones already with larger screens of five or six inches.

No software update:

If you buy a basic phone, unfortunately, you got an issue with that phone after using some time, you can not do anything yourself to solve the issue so let’s say if that was a smartphone that could be solved with a software update if it were a smartphone.

So those are all the disadvantages and these pros and cons aren’t even a quarter of what the list should look like, these are just the main ones that I thought I should tell you guys.