Despite the fact that tech news cover smartphones 99 percent of the time, feature phones are still selling very well in emerging markets. In a world where intelligent phones rule, Sonim's new XP3 flip phone comes to offer customers in the United States the option to buy a basic handset that does away with all those advanced features of a smartphone.

But there's more to Sonim's XP3 handset than simplicity, since this is the first clamshell that's been tested and certified to operate on FirstNet, the US public safety broadband communications safety platform. Basically, it helps first responders ...