The recent iPhone5 and other phone threads got me thinking :
I'm sure many here like myself have had a huge variety of cell phones over the years, and it was always kind of cool to see new features, better battery life, integration with camera/camcorder features, and so on.
I never thought too much of the Blackberry and Palm products, they always felt a bit clunky to me, even when they were the only game in town and state of the art for their time.
When iPhone and Android phones came along, I knew immediately that this was basically how they were supposed to be the whole time. Good response, great screens, much more flexible and supported with apps, and for the first time handheld phone internet use was truly usable with higher resolution and decent compatibility with web content, even for sites that weren't set for a mobile version.
So I've gone through several models of the iPhone (last one was a 4S from work), and several Androids (last was a Galaxy S3 that I recently sold for about what I paid). I guess I don't have too many complaints, surely nothing original (battery life on some of the androids, iTunes sucking on Windows, stupid pricing for plans from phone companies, etc).
But you know what? I never did become one of those phone zombies I'm sure you've all seen out there. The ones constantly face down at their smartphone, even mid-dinner or mid-conversation with others, or at a traffic light doing whatever they're doing with them (seems rarely to be using them as a device for making actual calls, lol). I played with the apps, I took some pictures and videos, I bluetoothed it with my car, but it never felt essential to me, and certainly not worth the expense. About the only thing I really came to really like about them was the instant mobile email, particularly the ability to control several work accounts, and be able to pop off a quick reply to a pressing issue quickly.
Most of the features feel like a huge compromise anyway. Kind of neat to have, but basically it's just weaker stuff. I have a decent DSLR (EOS 5D/MK3), I have an old iPod touch, I have Navi in my car, I have a respectable home theatre setup, and a decent PC setup for gaming/neffing/etc. So pictures/video/music/navigation/movies/gaming, and even non-email internet use are pretty much meaningless to me in phone form.
So anyway, I'm done caring about fancy new phone models. I've downgraded to a free Galaxy Prevail (basic small android, a little smaller than an i4S), and I've installed literally nothing but my email config on it. I dumped my ludicrously overpriced Sprint everything unlimited data etc plan and gone with Boost, which after a little while will drop to $35/mo total, no fees/taxes/BS to worry over. I don't miss the other stuff at all, not even a tiny bit.
I guess I will be interested in how the $99 and under basically free phone market develops over the next few years (I'd love a phone that was very basic, but had like a 1 week uptime off the charger with moderate usage), but I couldn't possibly care less any more about the trendy expensive smartphones any more. Maybe I'm just getting even more boring in my old age
TLDR : Smartphones overrated/mostly meaningless to you? They are to me.
Note : this is of course just my personal opinion, I know that for lots of folks, these things can be essential if you need more complex apps/etc to work with.