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 size, weight and price.
That, and lack of precedent. Devices like this 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.
How on earth can that be faster than typing on a regular qwerty keyboard.
I love stuff like this. There's a great episode of the 90s PBS show Computer Chronicles with a ton of these:
https://computerchronicles.tv/#episode/1103
(Though at the time of this comment the Internet Archive seems to be down so if the video doesn't load, that's why.)
I love the pace of the commercial btw, which could also have been done by Vsauce.
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.