Today's blog is on mobile phones history. Nah, my mobile phones history that is. I'm gemini, so by my curious nature, I get intrigued by new technologies and the new jargons that they throw out during their marketing campaigns. Really, I dig that. Although deep down I know most are bull and craps but I can't help but find myself very attracted to these stuff.
And so the story goes where I got my first mobile phone around age 18 or so.. when Nokia produced the first mass market phone with an internal antenna. I know, before that, Motorola StarTac was pretty popular, but at before that age group, I was a poor little high school boy with no income. Mobile phone is outta my reach. Pager is the only thing I could persuade my mom to provide me with. Nonetheless, I was ecstatic with the new 'toy'. haha. Curiously enough, I scoured the internet for a picture of the model I held and I can't find this Hutchison pager. Guess I wasn't always a trend follower. Would be heaps easier if I had gone with Motorola at that time.
Back to the mobile phones. I can't remember exactly, but I think I actually paid for the phone myself with my pay. I was working part-time, and 3210 was a very affordable mobile phone.
Below you'll find the phones that I've held, the year/month that I've bought them and the high level ranking I gave the phones in terms of overall package and value.
1999. Definitely after March(coz that's when the phone was launched)
Nokia
3210 - +++
My first phone is actually fairly acceptable. Affordable pricing, good feature games, calculator, T9 predictive dictionary messaging, fantastic signal. Super durable casing. I lost count of the times this thing flew out of my hands (along with my heart). It actually lasted quite some years before I decided to buy another phone. I give this phone 3 stars out of 5 in my opinion.
Sony
Ericsson z200 - early 2004 +
My next buy however is the most disappointing ever. Smitten by the looks of it and my own naivety believing that Sony's offering in features should at least rival Nokia's 3210. How wrong I was. With only 3 games and some useless functions, the early excitement quickly turned into downright detest. I was soon on the lookout for another phone. I rate the experience 1 star.
Motorola
MPX200 - late 2004 +++++
And there. When you fall and you fail, you learned. I quickly learned that looks are deceiving. And inner beauty is more important! So my next hunt becomes an obsession about specs and functionalities. I did a pretty good research on this next buy. I took the leap of faith and jumped into Windows Mobile 5.0. Yeah~~ This phone is a beauty. All business on the outside, but internally, Windows mobile provides a platform for doing a lot of stuffs that in that era, most mobile phones OS just couldn't compete. This is a complete smartphone that is way ahead of its time. Don't believe me? I'm able to listen to music(mp3), play bejeweled, work on Excel and word, use notepads and watch videos. All that in a nice little phone. At that time, I remember most people would probably carry in their bags - CD player, a notebook to write stuff, and a feature phone. And you still can't watch video if you want. The funny thing is Bejeweled is so addictive that 2 of my colleagues went out to buy the phone too. Lol. Top notch phone. 5 stars all the way.
Nokia
9300i Silver - early 2006 ++
Some 2 years later, I was on the lookout again. Blind assumptions did it to me again. I bought the 9300i communicator. It looks good, very business like, able to handle folders, some work etc. but this OS is not Symbian 60 that was widely available in most other models. So I've got a high end symbian 80 phone that can't download anything that was available in the market (because of the low adoption rate). Great.... Can't remember how much this phone has cost me in actual, but it is in the range of $900 to $1k. The reason that this phone wasn't 1 star (i'm giving it a 2 star in overall experience) is because it still serve basic and work functions well.
Eten M600
- mid 2006 +++++
And so with the bad experience of Symbian 80, I've went back to Windows Mobile. I found this Taiwanese brand called Eten. They are selling various models of WM6 devices. A big plus for me is that it has stylus! I've always wanted a palmtop. But I don't like the grayscale of palm, so WM is great. Again, providing great entertainment value and work productivity in one device. I love this device so much that when it was broken, on separate occasions, I was handed it back as a gift from my wife. She bought 2 more for me! Both are the slightly better units marked with a "+" sign at the end of the model - M600+. Absolute stunner.
Eten
M600+ Given twice - 2007 ,2008 +++++
Samsung Galaxy S - 2010 March +++++
Okie, by now(2010), Android has gone past Eclair and is on Froyo. I've followed the news of Android up to this point, never really convinced with its performance. But early 2010 changed that. Samsung Galaxy S was gorgeous. Tons better looking than that of my trusty Eten (running empty by now). What about it's specs? I've done my research well. Top of the line specs, rave reviews and very customisable OS. Apps list are growing and this will probably be a good investment. I was right. I love the phone. I read the performance of other phones were sluggish and all, but on GS1, it is just brilliant. A 5 star experience.
HTC Titan - late 2011 ++++
So almost 2 years on, I switch phones again. As I mentioned earlier, I love Windows mobile, and I'm easily sold by marketing jargons. So live tiles here I come! The funny thing is I didn't go for the then dominant player in the WP market. I chose the smaller offering from HTC. Perhaps it was the specs, and the metal casing that made it more compelling than what Nokia was offering at that time, but it was a good jump. The number of apps in WP at the time was almost pathetic. However, that didn't really spoil the experience. In fact, I was pretty blown away by Live tiles. I still love it to this day. It is better to have your screen constantly flicking and updating new stuffs than that of dull icons staring right back at you, or widgets that demands you to manually flick them to view stuff... I mean, if I want to flick to view stuff, I might as well fire up the actual app. Anyhoo, the apps that I can find and use are usually of fair quality. So all in all, WP experience has been rather pleasant. I gave it 4 stars.
Nokia Lumia 920 Yellow - sep 2012 +++
Nokia Lumia 920 Yellow - sep 2012 +++
In a year's time, I was ready to switch. I was trying to buy this phone for weeks. And finally when I got my hands on it, I've read enough bad reviews on it to reconsider my decision (battery heating issue on this model and some other models.) I had it for about 2 weeks before I decided to cut my loss and switch battle ground again. Although the time with me is short, I feel that the phone experience is about 3 stars.
Samsung Galaxy Note 2 -oct 2012 ++++
So as I wrote above, I had the 920 for around 2 weeks. At that time, G Note 2 is out. And it's really really interesting. Look at that! A stylus that works. A phone that I'm looking for! BIG SCREEN. Psst, I know before that, there's the original note, but I wasn't convinced with the design, specs and overall reviews. But then G note 2 changed that impression. I really think that the big screen is the way to go. 4 stars overall. I love it, but I wasn't blown. Afterall, this is not my first delve into Android. I know what I'm getting into.
Sony Xperia ZL Red - mid-late 2013 +++
Sony Xperia ZL Red - mid-late 2013 +++
With my previous experience with GS and G Note 2, I fell in love with a certain type of skins (sony launcher) while rooting and installing many custom roms. I thought it would be a good idea to try out Sony's actual work instead of 3rd party's fiddling. Again, again, Sony. You have disappoint again. The specs wasn't all that bad, it was pretty high end and yet the performance wasn't on par with my previous samsung experiences. Plus, xda developers weren't high on this model, in fact all Sony's models. So there wasn't many ways that I could change the experience for the better. 3 stars overall.
Asus Padfone 2 + station - early 2014 ++
For many years I've read , watched and waited, I've always like hybrids. So Asus Padfone sounds like godsend. The official reviews are mostly promising. And so I bought it. Then I found the connections from phone to tablet mode wasn't all that seamless. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't. That really spoiled the initial feeling. And then I read that to get Asus to fix it is one thing, getting back a good unit that works is another. Argghh..cut my loss now? 2 stars. For creativity. 0 for execution.
Google Nexus 5 Red - 2 weeks after Asus Padfone 2 2014 +++
I requested for a refund. And the company that sold me Padfone was good. I got my refund within a couple of days, and I start searching Gumtree hoping to find something that I can buy straight up. There. A Red Nexus 5. Wow. That's it, I haven't had any vanilla experience with Android, plus this phone has great reviews. Yeah, yeah. It's good alright. Except for the battery life. 3 stars overall again. Vanilla or not, it does not change the fact that the phone can't get through a full day with a single charge.
Nokia Lumia 1520 Yellow - April 2015.++++
So 6 months down the road, I've heard that Windows 10 for mobiles is coming out and being a Windows phone fan (I love live tiles), I look for the best of the best in WP. So I settled on Lumia 1520. A gigantic 6 inch phone. By any standards, this is a huge phone, but once you get past the size, you will find that every other phones are plain small. lol. So why is this phone not the current phone I'm using? Mainly because Microsoft somehow can tell the world that it's best of the best WP available in the market won't be among the first batch of phones to get the official update to Win10 for mobiles. I know I can always sign up to the Windows insider to get the testers version to try it out, but I'm not gonna do it. I use my phones mostly as a daily driver. If there's bugs here and there it will piss the hell out of me everyday. So what did I do? Another phone. There's an asterisk here though, this phone wasn't traded in nor sold. It's still with me until Win10 is ready for it. It'll be a companion tablet at home for now.
Samsung galaxy note 4 black- Sep 2015
Samsung galaxy note 4 black- Sep 2015
Sept 15. Yes, about 3 days ago, I got myself another new phone. What is it this time? G Note 4. What? G Note 5 is a week away and you are getting yourself a G Note 4? I did have a hard time deciding on this next phone. I was in two minds about getting G Note 4 or 5 or maybe a LG G4 perhaps? But then, several reviews about the battery life of G4 finally made me turned away and settle on either 5 or 4 . So why 4? Because 5 is glass. Glass. Glass. Glass. This phone will not last. It is made of glass. It can be performing faster than my note 4, better s pen functions and ... oh that's pretty much it...but Note 4 did have a few good things that Note 5 will never have. A replaceable battery, a sd card slot and a decent back cover. Performance is really relative when it comes to this generation of mobile phones. So long as it is a flagship model, there's really nothing too big of difference in terms of everyday performances. Glass.Are you sure you are not getting a cover to protect the phone?
If you managed to go through the list until this point, you would have realised that one big brand of phone is missing conspicuously in my arsenal range of phones. That is because I've never been a fan of Apple's "big brother" approach. Granted, Windowsphone is also walled garden by this time, but I've got better impression of them than that of Apple. And the thing is I can't bring myself to pay for a device which I know an Android can do as well if not better in some cases. So there, the whole history. Until the next time.
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