https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-mode

At 80M subscribers, it was probably the most popular way in the world to access mobile internet pre-iPhone.

I-mode also introduced the original set of emojis that are now supported everywhere.

Psion is the big one - the Organiser, Series 3 and Series 5 in particular. The latter was the genesis of Symbian, which Motorola was also a partner in.

Prior efforts were menu oriented or attempts at desktop UI on a tiny screen, like WinCE.

Most people would not have thought "underwhelming", and displays no better than that were commonplace in really popular devices for the next five years, including in the Palm V and Vx.

The problem these early smartphones had with their audience was lack of precedent. The Newton launched the year before but almost nobody would have seen them in the wild. Maybe geeky people had seen the Tandy/Casio Zoomer in print ads or Radio Shack.

Devices of this kind that launched after people started seeing Palm Pilots everywhere had an easier time.

That, I think, is why it is sold the way it is in this ad; few people would have had any reason to know how they worked or what they could offer, so "features-first" advertising would not really have reached a wide enough market. This kind of advertising was really commonplace for computers.