Chociaż w targach IFA w Berlinie byłem już 5 razy, to w tym roku zdarzyło się po raz pierwszy, że byłem na nich sam (to znaczy był też Krzysiek, ale minęliśmy
Mobile phones in the era before smartphones had cameras, email clients, games, music players, and even web browsers. They just weren't very good at those functions and their core feature was being a phone for voice calls. Texting was barely a feature on some of them (the first camera phone in the United States, the Sanyo SCP-5300, didn't have a two way text messaging client - the user had to go to a website on the phone to send texts, which was inconvenient even on a 1xRTT 3G connection.)
The e-ink phone seems closer to a dumbphone than a smartphone, IMO, largely because it lacks access to an app store.
Source: I sold mobile phones before smartphones and during the early smartphone years (BlackBerry and Palm Treo, for example.)
Edit: calling it a feature phone instead of a dumb phone might be more accurate.
I disagree. A dumbphone (in my opinion) is a phone that does everything you need and nothing you don't, and is distraction-free. And especially one that DOES NOT run Android. Email is unfortunately essential in the modern age.
While I get your opinion, these things have definitions. Here's a super simple version:
A dumb phone does not connect to the internet. Its a phone. Just a dumb device.
A feature phone is what you're referring to here, where it may connect to the internet, but isn't part of some larger ecosystem and is certainly not an app-first approach. Its a phone first, ancillary features are a bonus.
Smartphones are your android and iOS devices, which connect to the internet, is part of a large ecosystem of applications, is an internet first oriented device, etc.
So yes, this is a feature phone from what I've read of the translation.
Which is why dumb phones and feature phones aren't common anymore, and the people choosing them are specifically choosing it to avoid being available via WhatsApp/Signal/Slack/Discord/Teams/whatever else.
My FIL for example has a clamshell feature phone, because he doesn't want to be reached except by phone or SMS. He doesn't want to read email or get messages on his phone, he wants to restrict that to when he's in front of his computer.
So yes, you would not be able to use messaging clients on a dumb phone, that's the idea behind their use today.
I remember sending a Facebook message on my feature phone. I had to type with the num pad and it took minutes to load the page, but it I was successful.
I think people are forgetting that feature phones were connected to the internet back in the day
The Wikipedia page for Feature Phone looks to have been started in 2011.
The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and popularized Smart Phones to a point that Feature Phone grew in use enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry a few years later.
You better head over to Wikipedia to fix the misinformation issue they have had for over a decade now.
Feature phones typically have more "features" than dumbphones, hence the name. They almost always run Android as well which means they build in all sorts of telemetry and dependencies.
I consider anything that even touches data (even 3gp or email) and can play MP3s a feature phone. Even if this thing didnt play MP3's, the fact it can read ebooks I'd say makes it one.