Types of Mobile Phones?

First off, let us look at the types of mobile phones in the market. For this article, we will categorise mobile phones into three types namely: Basic phones, Feature phones, and Smartphones.

Basic Mobile Phones

Nokia 101 is a basic phone with dual-SIM support, mp3 player, FM radio, flashlight and support for up to 32GB of memory card.





Basic mobile phones are phones that focus on what mobile phones are meant for: making and receiving calls. They usually lack the bells and whistles like camera, Bluetooth, USB, and most importantly internet access. They support basic features like SMS. 
Features like torchlight, modest colour display, and FM radio are also common in good basic phones. Nokia has also included music player, dual-SIM, and support for microSD memory cards in some of their basic mobile phone models. 
The major difference between a basic phone and other types of mobile phones is that a basic phone does not support packet data internet like GPRS, EVDO, EDGE, 3G, LTE, etc. Basic phones usually cost less than N7,000 in Nigeria. 

Smartphones

Samsung Galaxy Nexus is an Android based Smartphone. It was the first Smartphone to feature Android 4.0.






A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers the computing capability of a computer. Its major distinguishing factor is that it comes with sensors and support third party apps that increases the functionality of the phone beyond the offering of the manufacturer.

Multitasking or pseudo-multitasking is also a key smartphone feature. Multitasking is the ability to run multiple applications at the same time. For example, you could be browsing the internet while still receiving updates from your Facebook app and you can easily switch between your open applications.

 The recognised smartphone platforms are Asha Touch, Symbian, Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Maemo, Palm, WebOS, MeeGo, and Bada. Smartphone prices starts at around 13,000 Naira in Nigeria. However, Smartphones of less than N25,000 may not offer great user experience. So, beware.

Feature Phone

Nokia X3-02 aka X3 Touch and Type is a feature phone. It comes with a 2.4-inch touch display and keypad. It also supports 3G and Wi-Fi.







Smartphones and basic phones above now makes it easy to identify feature phones by elimination. If a mobile phone is neither a basic phone or a smartphone, then it must be a feature phone. Feature phones are internet enabled phones that do not run any of the recognised smartphone platforms.

Like smartphones they also run third party apps written in Java, Flash, or/and for a unrecognised smartphone platform. Nokia Series 40 is the most popular feature phone platform in Nigeria. Prices of feature phones ranges between N7,000 and N25,000 in Nigeria.