Phone memories

Do you remember how many phones you’ve bought till date?

I tried to count and soon realized that I couldn’t count them in my hand. I took a notebook and put down the names of all the phones I had used in the past 14 years. Here is a progression of mobile phone ownership for a middle class kid/person. Looking back, some of the features at that time were downright hilarious but nevertheless it was good for its time. I’ve also mentioned the reason for switching so often (other than the fact that I like to experience new/different phones to find out if a particular brand has any ingenious feature). As you read this post, I hope you get to think back on your past mobile phones and the memories bundled with it.

Siemens A36. Yr. 2000

The first mobile phone I used was in 2000 - Siemens A36. With Outgoing call at Rs.16/min and incoming call at Rs.10/min, this was primarily used for giving missed calls to the landline. The intent of the missed call was decided before leaving home, eg. I’ll be at this bus station and when I give a missed call, come and pick me up. Also, it was to be used only in case of emergencies. It was more of a family phone, whoever went out would take it. It did not have internet connection or I wasn’t aware of it.

Reliance LG CDMA. Yr. 2003

I had moved to a new city during college, so dad got me this to keep in touch with family. It was a CDMA phone. We couldn’t do much with it but it did have internet connection. We would use that to check cricket scores sometimes. No external memory. No camera.

Nokia N-gage. Yr. 2005

Phone no.3 This was a special phone as I got it as a gift from my parents for getting placed through campus placements. I had asked my aunt, visiting us from Singapore, to buy a memory card — 256 MB. Wow! 256 MB. It didn’t have camera but was a different looking phone, I loved it. Then I lost it in the beach sands of besi beach, Chennai. It fell and I didn’t even hear the sound because of the beach sand. That was the first phone I lost. It will always remain my favourite phone. The screen and UI were really crisp and neat. It didn’t have a camera though, at that time cameras were not as ubiquitous as now. One of my friends had Nokia 6600 which has a camera, so I’d transfer those pics to my phone through Bluetooth. I’d love to have this phone again with a good camera on it. It ran on Symbian OS so we used to get and pass around .JAR files, if I’m not mistaken. My family had funny names for this one, some called it ‘egg’ and others called it a ‘flat pan’.

Samsung R210. Yr. 2006

Phone no. 4. I had to buy something cheap. The thing I remember about this one is that the battery would swell up if I continued to charge the phone after 100% charge. It would literally swell up. After a while I had to put a rubber-band around it to keep the battery and back cover from falling off.

Nokia 1100. Yr. 2007

Phone no. 5. I was absolutely pissed with that Samsung phone. With a budget constraint, I bought this one. No qualms. Didn’t over-promise; didn’t over-deliver.

Moto Razr Z6. Yr. 2008

Phone no. 6. Slide-open phone was a nice thing to have. It was sleek and had an amazing finish to it. It was one good looking phone. It was my first camera phone with a 2 MP camera. Also that chrome ring joystick used to fall off and I lost that ring.

Micromax Q3. Yr. 2010

I wanted to try the blackberry style keypad, but could not afford a Blackberry, so I bought Micromax Q3. After a couple of weeks the color started wearing off from the device.

Nokia E72. Yr. 2010

Phone no. 8. Another good product by Nokia. Really loved the hardware, the touch and feel of the phone. Even the screens were good, uncluttered. I really liked it and that is why I had this for two years. Still Symbian OS. Now that I think about it, it hadn’t evolved much in terms of interface compared to N-GAGE in 2006.

Moto Defy+ Yr. 2012

Phone no. 9. Nokia and Moto made the best phones when it came to hardware (not counting iPhone). Couldn’t afford an iPhone then, don’t want now.

My first touchscreen mobile. Really enjoyed the experience. This phone was water proof and the OS was android but it slowed down the phone considerably. I got really frustrated with the lag and decided to switch again.

Nokia Lumia 520. Yr. 2013

Phone no. 10. The first time I saw WINDOWS was on a Samsung phone, and when the time came to buy the next phone, I was pretty sure which one I wanted to buy. I was very happy with the design. There were two main problems with Lumia series — hardware was bad. The screen glass would crack even on a simple fall and the power button was flimsy. Nokia was always known for their strong hardware and they let it go, maybe they wanted to price competitively but it was a big disappointment for me. Second problem was lack of apps. Google maps did not have an app for Lumia, I could make do with HERE maps. I could not access Google drive files. Flickr didn’t have an app. Instagram had only released a Beta ( I think even now it is in Beta state). Whatsapp was barely supported and not great. The Microsoft OS interface was interesting(good interesting) but the experience and interactions were not good.

Lenovo s850. Yr. 2014

Phone no. 11. In a year I had enough of Nokia/Windows and switched to android with a Lenovo. This was a truly remarkable phone in some of the ingenious features. Users didn’t have to swipe the screen from top to slide down notifications, one could just swipe vertically down on the screen from any starting point and it would slide down the notifications bar. To change the text size of SMS, users could just pinch-zoom on the text message and the font size would increase. There was a mode called battery saver, it would keep the phone alive for a couple of days with 10% battery. Also the phone body was great, glasses on both sides inspired by iPhone I guess.

Lumia 540. Yr. 2015

I thought after couple of years from my last BAD Lumia experience, things would have changed for the better. But no. Nothing had not changed compared to its 2013 predecessor, be it design or features. Only the ads were more tempting but the product was very much the same. The power button was still flimsy, the apps that were missing in 2013 were still missing. I did not want to wait long enough to see how if the screen strength got any better. I got rid of it in three months and purchased the phone that I’m using right now.

MOTO G Trubo Edition

Phone no. 13. I’ve been using this for a couple of months now and I must confess I’m really impressed with the phone. I don’t want to jinx it! Maybe 13 is my lucky number.

One thing is clear, the phone/companies that did not adapt to the fast changing environment are dead. Of the two companies that I loved from the past, Nokia and Moto, the latter got lucky to be acquired by Google and then passed on to Lenovo. Lenovo has done a great job releasing variants that do not cannibalize their own products(like Samsung) and have clear differentiators in terms of price and features.

Which is your favourite phone from the past, before 2010? Leave a comment. #phoneMemories

If this post made you think about your old phones and reminisce the good memories, click on the green heart below and recommend this post.