Ah, thanks for that excerpt! ♥ I totally see how you got there. Yeah, that could go either way, couldn't it? And the official translation is even more ambiguous wrt the phone itself, because there's no mention of any games:

On the way, he couldn’t help repeatedly looking at his phone, even though the device had only three functions: calling, texting, and displaying the time.

Shen Wei wasn’t a fan of technology. He was a slow-tempered, antiquated man who still found writing letters more convenient. If something was urgent, he could write a quick note. If not, he could take his time writing, and so what if it ran a little long? And as for phone calls, well, you paid for those by the minute, which gave him the horribly uncomfortable sense that someone was scrutinizing him as he spoke.