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.