What is a feature phone?
Feature phones (aka “dumb phones”) are mobile devices that offer basic features like text messaging and making phone calls. They often go against the modern smartphone form factor, including a set of buttons to navigate the software and a keypad to dial phone numbers. If you were around during the early 2000s, you’ll remember devices such as the Motorola Razr v3 and the LG Chocolate - these are prime examples of what you can roughly expect in a modern feature phone.
What is considered a feature phone?
Feature phones are considered less capable devices than modern smartphones, they typically have a small screen, physical keypad, limited internet capabilities, and a few built-in apps. In contrast, modern smartphones have large touch screens, advanced cameras setups, high-speed data, and millions of apps.
What is the difference between a feature phone and a smartphone?
Feature phones offer only basic features, while smartphones try to offer cutting edge tech. The focus of a feature phone is communication (calling and texting), while a modern smartphone focuses on being an all-in-one computing device (communication, photography, games, and content creation).
What can you do with a feature phone?
Feature phones are focused on communication - namely talk and text. However, like phones from the early 2000s, they also typically offer helpful built-in apps for note taking, calendar management, listening to music (local files, not streaming), and even email (although typically limited). Modern apps and functionality can be used on some feature phones using a service called Cloud Phone.
Are feature phones making a comeback?
Feature phones are making a comeback in 2025 largely due to a niche audience looking to do a digital detox. This audience is looking to ditch the constant stimulation and distraction (ie doomscrolling) that their smartphones offer, preferring to “go back to basics” when phones were primarily used for communication.
In addition to this niche audience, there are several audiences around the world in countries that aren’t able to afford smartphones. These people are budget-forced to purchase and use dumbphones to keep in touch with friends and family. In this particular case, dumbphones are making less of a “comeback” and are more a “daily necessity.”
How much do feature phones cost?
Feature phones are generally cheaper than the high-end smartphones of today, however, their prices range wildly due to their included features and capabilities. Roughly speaking, you can get a feature phone in 2025 for as little as $12 USD and as high as $700 USD. This wild range reflects the different demographics that feature phones serve, from people that are looking for a digital detox, to those that need a phone on a restrictive budget.
Popular Feature Phones
There are a lot of feature phones out there, the ones featured in this section are primarily focused on their recent virality in 2025. It’s important to note that the ones showcased here are just scratching the surface of what is available in terms of form factor and price.
Minimal Phone
The Minimal Phone is really a hybrid device between smartphone and dumbphone. Our daily lives have largely been changed by the rise of the smartphone, making them essential in some use cases - such as Uber for travel, and data-driven chat apps for work (ie Slack). To bridge this gap, the Minimal phone sports an eInk display with a high refresh rate, a physical keyboard for that tactile feel, all while running on Android with full access to Google Play.
Minimal Phone features:
- $399 USD MSRP
- E-Paper Display (eInk)
- Tactile QWERTY keyboard
- Android 14
- Headphone jack
- RCS messaging
- Full Google Play Store access
- 4-day battery life
- NFC Payment support
- Android Auto
Full details on the official Minimal Phone website.
Litephone III
The Litephone III has been making the rounds on YouTube lately for its unique form factor and dedication to keeping things simple. The device boasts metal side buttons, premium build quality, and AMOLED touch display. It’s shorter and thicker than a traditional smartphone, with a large speaker grill across the bottom of the device. It runs LightOS, a minimal software experience that offer a black and white list of utility-driven apps such as Alarm, Calculator, Podcast, Phone, and more.
Lite Phone III features:
- Matte Glass 3.92” AMOLED (1080x1240) display
- 1800mAH battery
- IP54 rated
- ~1-2 days of battery life (still being determined as per the official FAQ)
Full details on the official Litephone III website.
The problem with modern feature phones
The problem with modern feature phones is primarily the price, although that makes sense. Modern dumb phones are often tailored for those coming from the modern smartphone, serving people that need to keep some modern luxuries (ie mobile payments, navigation). Even still these dumb phones are often cheaper than many smartphones on the market - but not cheap enough for some.
There is an entire demographic out there that have extremely limited budgets, but still need to be able to communicate with family and friends. Furthermore, as smartphones revolutionize what’s possible on-the-go, those that are budget-restricted have an increased need for more data-driven experiences. That means that we can’t just give these people a basic flip phone and call it a day. This is where Cloud Phone by CloudMosa comes in.
What is Cloud Phone?
Cloud Phone is a revolutionary technology that brings modern web apps to basic dumb phones. Some of these dumb phones cost as little as $12 USD - so their onboard hardware is severely limited. If you think of modern websites and web apps, they have fancy hi-res images and animations that will struggle to run on anything but modern hardware, let alone tiny displays on phones with questionable reception. This is where Cloud Phone steps in.
How Cloud Phone Works
Cloud Phone uses cloud-based technology to offload computational tasks from low-end feature phones to cloud servers that allow these basic phones to function more like smartphones.
- Thin client architecture: The feature phone acts as a lightweight terminal that connects to a virtualized environment in the cloud.
- Remote rendering and streaming: User interactions are processed in the cloud and streamed back to the feature phone in real time.
- Web-based applications: Instead of installing apps like you would on an iPhone, users access cloud-hosted widgets for services like YouTube, Facebook, podcasts, news, and more.
In-depth look at Cloud Phone
A few weeks ago Matt had the pleasure of sitting down with Cloud Phone’s Tom Barrasso on the HTML All The Things Podcast to discuss the importance of flip phones in 2025. The guys did a deep dive into flip phones for those looking at a digital detox, the limitations of RTOS, and the empowerment that Cloud Phone brings to devices with limited hardware.
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
