post #2559940 post #4060547 post #206006 post #3971756 post #3959622

"Bar phone" describes a variety of cellphones that have a vaguely soap bar or chocolate bar form. Bar phones were the most popular form of phone before "full face" touch screen smartphones, they are still sometimes used as a cartoon/iconographic short hand for a cellphone.

Types of Bar Phone

• The "classic" bar phone — a chunky rounded "soap bar" with small square LCD screen and numeric & function buttons
• See example 1, bottom left corner of example 2 for a real model of bar phone
• These devices may be confused with cordless phones, but are more streamlined and portable than chunkier cordless landline handsets
• May or may not feature antenna
• Later bar phones — these devices were slimmer, had more functions (e.g. calendars, email, web browsing abilities), cameras, and sometimes mixed touch screen controls and physical buttons, or featured full alphabetical keypads
• The Blackberry in example four, and the phone in the final example, are early smartphones, but should be tagged as bar phones to distinguish them from modern devices that lack physical face buttons
• Slider phones — which feature a large screen, minimal face buttons, and a slide out keypad, can also be tagged as bar phones

Related Tags

• holding phone
• looking at phone
• phone call
• selfie

See Also

• phone
• cellphone
• bar phone
• brick phone
• flip phone
• smartphone
• landline phone
• cordless phone
• rotary phone