Pre-Smartphone Era

Comments discuss and reminisce about life, technology, and services before smartphones became ubiquitous, often contrasting feature phones and early mobile tech with modern devices.

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3,343
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#8369
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
3
2008
12
2009
39
2010
103
2011
97
2012
127
2013
126
2014
107
2015
111
2016
144
2017
159
2018
150
2019
220
2020
249
2021
307
2022
342
2023
389
2024
349
2025
288
2026
21

Keywords

US WinMob S3 SMS WAY SIM HTC en.m S4 PC smartphones phones mobile phones phone mobile iphone 2007 remember early 2000s 90s

Sample Comments

jamesrcole Jan 24, 2018 View on HN

It was true before smartphones came onto the scene.

bufio Apr 18, 2023 View on HN

That's how life was before smartphones.

hyperhopper Apr 25, 2025 View on HN

That was before smartphone and tablets were common

agilob Jan 19, 2024 View on HN

Just like mobile phones had in '90s.

raldi Mar 25, 2016 View on HN

Isn't that what they said about phones before 2007?

peddling-brink Dec 22, 2020 View on HN

There weren't that many smartphones then. Most people were using feature phones.

BurningFrog Nov 13, 2019 View on HN

There were mobile phones decades before any of this existed.

whimsicalism Oct 26, 2021 View on HN

We didn't have smartphones little over a decade ago.

plagiarist Apr 15, 2023 View on HN

This was not on the horizon when smartphones were becoming popular.

Ididntdothis Jul 15, 2019 View on HN

True. back then a mobile phone was mainly a messaging device.