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Comment by outime | Hacker News Reader

>It was easier to flip open a phone to unlock it then press the weird key combos that some phones used.

That depends if you had a lock code - in such case it was irrelevant back then already. Also it wasn't like you'd check the phone hundreds of time per day as most of the people do nowadays so it wasn't a big annoyance to unlock by pressing e.g. two keys in the keypad, but maybe that's just me.

One thing that many people appreciate as well was receiving a call and just open the phone to answer it.

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Nobody had a lock code on the old Razr. What would you be locking? The ability to place a call?

Your text message history was rather private

Text messaging was available in the razr era but not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Relatively few people used it, and you were limited to sending and receiving small amounts of text only or maybe a very low res image (remember what early camera phones were like?) so those limited uses were also less likely to contain any sensitive data.

Texting was extremely common for my social circles at the time.

T9 was quite well used throughout the world during that era. Predictive spelling originated with Nokia. Just a few quick taps could spell out an entire sentence.

It was less well used in the US where you were charged a relatively exorbitant rate for sending and receiving texts. $.05/SMS + $.25/MMS

I'm in my 30s. When I was 15, texting in the razr era was just as ubiquitous in my school as it is for anyone right now. Sexting, gossip, flirting, hanging out, all of it, all day, everyone. My sisters could even touch-type entire essays to their friends under the dinner table while they ate and were not allowed on their phone.

There wasn't any image content, but you certainly don't need images to have messages you want to keep private.

I wouldn't want anyone I know going through any of my private conversations line by line. I don't see how razr 2004 vs iphone 2019 is any different in that regard.

>Text messaging was available in the razr era but not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Relatively few people used it

This isn't at all true in my experience, perhaps it's an age/generational thing? Personally, everyone that I know that texts today texted just as much back when they had flip phones like the razr

What kind of era are you talking about? Early to mid 90s? I'd agree. But after, for me anyway, around '98 texting was absolutely ubiquitous and it was absolutely the primary method of communication between everyone I know.

And calls can be quite expensive/valuable - I seem to recall some rumour of stolen mobile phones being used to call premium rate numbers and cash in (don't know how true it ever was)

The lock code also prevented pocket dialing, although with a flip phone this wasn’t much of an issue.

And yeah as others have said, it protected your texts and pictures. The razr already had a camera.

> One thing that many people appreciate as well was receiving a call and just open the phone to answer it.

What's a "call" and why would I receive one on my phone?

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