Mobile Phones: More than Phone Calls

There are three categories of mobile phones.

Basic phones  can make voice calls, send and receive SMS messages and make use of USSD services (USSD services are explained further in this chapter).

Featurephones  offer features additional to a basic phone, including cameras and increased storage, as well as the ability to access the Internet. Featurephones usually have a standard numeric keypad.

Smartphones  offers advanced capabilities and features over featurephones, notably allowing users to add applications to their phones. These phones run a full featured operating system, most have 3G as well as WiFi capabilitities and generally have a QWERTY keypad.

Note that there is not yet an industry standard definition of a smartphone, and many featurephones are now being developed with technology similar to smartphones. Smartphones tend to have bigger screens than featurephones.