People love their smartphones. Our handheld devices are more sophisticated, useful and integral to our everyday lives than those we had back in the late 90’s and 00’s.
Our phones now encompass many devices in one. In addition to sending texts and making calls, smartphones are now our calendars reminding us of important events, alarm clocks waking us up in the morning, cameras capturing our memories, music players enabling us to listen to our favourite songs on the go, fitness trackers encouraging us to be fit and healthy…the list goes on!
Yet, many of us are looking back to old phone features with a sense of nostalgia.
Last month, Motorola hinted that they would be bringing back the flip phone. With speculation high as to Lenovo’s plans to launch a new version of the classic Motorola RAZR, smartphone users and technology enthusiasts everywhere began thinking of handsets gone before with fond memories.
Online smartphone retailer Mobiles.co.uk asked the nation what retro phone features Brits would most like to see in our modern smartphones. The research reveals a 5-day battery life (76%), a flip phone style (45%), and being able to compose your own ringtones (40%) are top of the list of things we would like to see in phones today.
The features making the top 10 list are:
- 5-day battery life (76%)
- Flip phone style (45%)
- Being able to compose your own ringtones (40%)
- Interchangeable phone covers (37%)
- A slide out full keyboard (34%)
- Sharing music via Bluetooth (24%)
- FM radio adapters (19%)
- Text message scheduling (19%)
- Hooks for phone charms (17%)
- Plug-in cameras (13%)
We spoke to Abby Francis, a Mobile Expert at Mobiles.co.uk, to get her thoughts on the findings:
“The Motorola RAZR was a hugely iconic phone that captured the attention of many people when it was first released in 2004, racking up 130 million sales over four years and becoming the best-selling flip phone of all time, which still seems to resonate well with people today.
“From creating our own ringtones to interchangeable phone covers, personalising a phone was extremely important to the noughties culture, and it’s great to see that whilst technology has moved forward, these features still have a place in our hearts.”
Although, to many flip phone lovers dismay, it seems Motorola will not be re-releasing its RAZR flip phone as no announcements were made at the Tech World event. The company insisted that the throwback video was designed to generate excitement for the then upcoming phone announcement.
Now, with the latest Motorola handsets announced and more phone launch dates set in the diary for later in the year, it seems technology and smartphone developments are not slowing down as companies strive to produce something better, faster and more impressive to the user.
Lenovo’s latest release however does nod to phone features gone before with its interchangeable covers. In fact, there has been an upgrade to the retro feature that more than a third (37%) of us want to see brought back as these new interchangeable covers not only allow users to accessorise and personalise, but actually add on new features. The optional ‘snap on’ parts include a speaker, a projector and a power pack to maximise battery life.
With the majority (76%) of people in the study by Mobiles.co.uk revealing that the 5-day battery life is the feature they most want to see in modern smartphones, we expect that this add-on will be a welcome one.
However, if a long battery life, flip phone style and ringtones make up the retro features of yesterday, what remains to be seen is which features of our smartphones now will make the list of new classic phone features of tomorrow.
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