Versus Mondays – Classic vs Flip

Today’s “Versus Mondays” pits the classic or candy bar style cell phone against the flip or clamshell phone. When cell phone first appeared on the market there was only one style, classic. All this changed when the StarTAC was released in the late 90’s. Sure there were flip phones prior to the StarTAC, but undoubtedly the StarTAC made flip style cell phones popular. With the huge popularity of the StarTAC cell phone manufacturers scrambled to create more flip phones. I would venture to say for some time the flip phone was the preferred style for most consumers. The flip phone was more compact then the classic style and definitely more “cool”. Things started to sway back in the classic style when smartphones started to become popular.

The smartphone took cell phones to the next level with their ability to have full QWERTY keyboards, multimedia features and of course touchscreen. It was not feasible to cram all these features into a flip phone. Some manufacturers such as Blackberry have tried with the Blackberry Pearl flip, but making a smartphone fit the flip style just has not worked to date. The ability to view video and other “high-end” features do not make since to put into a flip phone.

So in my option the flip phone will always be a popular choice for users who want a cell phone to perform the basics in a little package. For those who want a full feature smartphone the classic style is still the way to go. It will be interesting to see if any manufacturers will be able to crack the code and make a flip phone a true smartphone.