PhoneArena writers' favorites: feature phones

In this article, we've decided to share our favorite feature phones - devices that we've come to love and remember - be it for their unique design, functionality, or some other sentimental reason. In this trip down nostalgia lane, we look at phones from brands that are long extinct: Siemens and Sony Ericsson, and even good old Nokia that now deals only with networks (hopefully, it will come back to phone making in late 2016).

Alan: LG Voyager

A feature phone with a lot of extra functionality

While just a feature phone, it had an HTML browser, a touchscreen (a generous 2.81 inches in diagonal) inside the clam build and outside as well. The screen was hinky and the device was hardly the iPhone killer that Verizon had in mind, but I still fondly remember the device. At the time, it was considered to have a rather large 950mAh battery, which seems quite low by today's standards, though. You can read our full-on review of the LG Voyager right here.

Chris P: Samsung SGH-D900I Ultra 12.9

The SGH-D900l Ultra 12.9 is the kind of device that I had to look up before I could be sure of its exact name, so terrible was Samsung's naming convention back then. Still, back in 2007 I thought it was a big deal, and I'll always remember it for its slick, premium looks.

All about the hardware and a neat slider

For me, the D900l was all about the hardware. The slide-out mechanism, to this day, works perfectly, despite plenty of abuse, and that was definitely the part of the phone I liked most. The movement was (and still is) fluid and distinct, and I'd often find myself sliding the keyboard in and out as I was talking to people, so great did it feel.

Compared to what Samsung has on the market today, the SGH-D900l Ultra 12.9 seems quite insignificant, but the fact is that, for the longest time, I couldn't help but think that Samsung just didn't make hardware like that anymore. Thank god for the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge.

Daniel: Sony J5

Jog wheels were all the rage

The Sony J5 was a stylish device in times when phones came with much less visual appeal than current-day devices. Sure, it had an antenna that was sticking out of its top (that was quite the necessity back in the day), but as a compensation for this slight inconvenience, the Sony J5 was equipped with a cool jog wheel that provided a lot of convenient handling for games and just for navigating around menus. 

And given that just recently, the Apple Watch resurrected a similar concept for navigation, we might just have been looking into the future from 2000, the year when the Sony J5 was released.

Florin: Sony Ericsson K770

Camera on steroids... in 2007

The K770 is a Sony Ericsson Cybershot candybar from 2007. I bought it in 2008 - it was my first camera-centric phone. The K770 was really well made, it felt great in hand, and I loved the sliding mechanism that protected its rear camera (I think I've played with that way to much in the first days after I got the phone). Speaking of it, that 3.15 MP camera was quite good for a non-flagship back then. I actually used the K770 until early 2011, as a secondary phone, next to my first Android smartphones. It worked perfectly fine, but I eventually gave it away.

John: Sony Ericsson T68i

Crazy design and the first attachable camera

The Sony Ericsson T668i is the phone with many firsts for me: first color screen, first attachable camera, first 'enhanced' phone functions (ie WAP browser). It was also an iconic device for the time with a crazy design with a lot of curves and character, a great color display (quite the rarity in those dark ages of mobile techonlogy), and so much more. It was probably the camera, though, that showed us a glimpse of the future, though: with this attachable unit, you no longer needed a separate device to shoot pictures, you could just do it with your phone.

Luis: Siemens M55

Playing Splinter Cell in 4096 colors

With its sporty design and vibrant orange styling (everyone bought the orange one, no exceptions), the Siemens M55 was the coolest phone a 14-16 year old could possibly have. It had red flashing LEDs on the side, it played Splinter Cell in 4096 colors, and it had the most unforgiving keyboard imaginable... which only made one love it more! 

My fondest memories with it are wallpapering the tiny screen with a photo of a then-girlfriend (the screen was horrible, but love/hormones filled the missing detail and color, I guess), and discovering a Russian hack to increase the M55's internal memory from 1.5MB up to a whopping 3MB. Hey, that's a 100% increase!

Nanko: Motorola Aura

Exquisite approach to design that you no longer see

The Motorola Aura is a device released back in 2008 and it's a brutal high-end offer with a full 360-degree round screen and remarkable design. Keep in mind that the Motorola Aura was not a mass-produced device, it was not a 'flagship' in the mainstream meaning of the word - it was a truly premium phone with nearly double the price of a then flagship handset. Just look at it, though, at the careful designing and attention to every small detail - that is the Motorola Aura.

Nick: Motorola Razr2 V8

Can your iPhone do that?

This Motorola flip phone is an all-time favorite of mine for a number of reasons. First of all, it was one of the most attractive handsets of its age - thin, light, and shiny. Also, the flip design was very practical, in my opinion, and made the phone fun to use. The feel of its keypad was another thing I loved about this phone. Every key was easy to feel and clicked satisfyingly when pressed. Oh, and the built-in speaker was of excellent qualty. And last but not least, pressing a button on the phone's side during a call made a recording of it. 

Can your iPhone do that? I don't think so.

I've tried juggling some of the nice feature phones in my mind, and it was quite hard to make up my mind and settle on one definitive device. That is until I remembered about the Sony Ericsson T610. This little chubby buddy was the object of my technological desires and cravings way back when I was on a tight student budget and I devoured reviews and other information about it feverishly. There was this strange appeal to its design - it was definitely a chubby phone, but with a lot of character and a nice, two-tone color style, but it was the UI that I really admired the most. 

Dreaming about its zippy colorful UI

The T610 had a display that showed vibrant colors and a neat joystick that made navigation in the menu extremely pleasant and fast. The interface was very intuitive and quick, and the T610 set a high standard with its 0.1-megapixel camera that captured 352 by 288 pixel photos (remember those times?). It also had Bluetooth connectivity so you could hook up a headset for that futuristic feel. All in all, the Ericsson T610 was a little miraculous box that showed the way forward for technology. It's crazy that this reality that we've been dreaming of just a few years ago is now finally here.