2005 Nokia 1110 compared to the 2014 Samsung Galaxy S5
|It was only 9 years ago. Seriously think back 9 years ago it doesn’t seem that long for us but for mobile devices it seems like an eternity. I have posted before some pictures of my old devices that are worthless but still work. I never had the heart to throw away a device. I actually miss using my Motorola RAZR.
So I get this email today from the fine folks at Mobile Fun comparing the 9 year old Nokia 1111 to the brand spankin’ new Android Flagship device Samsung Galaxy S5. IT’s pretty amazing where we have come in so little time. Can you remember you first smart mobile phone? How about your first smart phone? Leave a comment and reminisce a little. Would like to hear from everyone.
I normally do not post external links but I will make an exception here because it is pretty interesting.
Then and Now infographic: Nokia 1110 vs Galaxy S5 via Mobile Fun
My first “smart” phone was the AT&T, then called Cingular 2125. Hated that phone. I really got hooked on the 8125 and Windows Mobile devices there after. Then enter XDA devlopers and HOURS of reading. Tilt Mobility, Fuze Mobility and ultimately Mobility Digest when it got to be too big of a pain in the @$$ to change names on the niche websites.
Didn’t save my old phone tech. Sold some on eBay and scrapped the rest. Had I known you were going to post this 15 years ago, I would have set a shoebox aside.
I got started, probably in 1994-1995, with the Motorola Digital Personal Communicator (preceded the MicroTAC and StarTAC). Had to get the extended battery (actually two and an external charger), which made the phone about 2″ thick. That was the standard back then. The Motorola took care of phone calls, my Palm Pilots, everything else. That was on Cellular One, which became AT&T, which became Cingular, and then AT&T again.
Then while I was up at our Oakville, Ontario plant in 2000 I read a news release about the Kyocera 6035 Palm phone. Flew back to NJ that night, and the next morning on my way into the office I stopped at the local Verizon store and gladly gave them $499 for this new toy. Lots of cabbage back then. This was my only experience with a different carrier in the past 19 years. The 6035 has been touted as the “first” smartphone, but others refer to some Qualcom phone, although I have never seen that phone in the real world. Although it had the Palm OS, BT and a whopping 8MB or RAM, it lasted less than 2 years, as Verizon chose to cripple Bluetooth functionality (which I think they may still be doing – dumb asses). I was very big into Bluetooth back then, following it from the very first announcement, through each iteration. I owned/used at least a dozen different BT keyboards and at least another dozen headsets/hands free permanent and portable devices. And that was all prior to 2005. If it had BT in it, I bought it.
Not 100% sure of the models, but for the next few years, I was all into Sony Ericsson phones, and back to AT&T. Real innovators in their time. The T68i in 2002 and the T610 in 2003. There was a model right before the T68i that had a plug in adapter to enable BT. That allowed me to use the phone hands free in the car. The old 2002 Sable I am driving now is the first vehicle I have owned/driven without a floor mount and hands free capability. I had that installed (or did it myself) in every vehicle the first week I got it. Used portable BT speakers for rental cars and the conference room.The T68i was also my first GSM phone.
I waited forever for Palm Pilot Bluetooth solutions (had an adapter for a Sony PDA on backorder for 8 months), but gave up on that when I got my first Pocket PC w/BT. Replaced my SE with a Razr (I think everyone over 30 owned a Razr) and stuck with that till the Cingular 2125 came around, nudging me gently towards the one device manta.
That was replaced with the Fuze, rendering my Pocket PC redundant. That switch connected me to Fuze Mobility. The rest is history.
Hmmm. My first mobile phone was the ubiquitous Nokia candy bar (don’t know the number) – you know the one, navy blue. I got a very Lisa-Frank-ish multicolored clip over cover that had a panda one it. My then-fiance (now husband) got one too. It was right after September 11, 2001. The guy who sold us the plans was all, “Oh, everyone’s getting phones because of what happened.” No, d***wad, we’re getting phones because we’re carpooling, and three days a week *I* have *his* car, and I’m a college student and he has no other way of getting a hold of me if he needs his car.
That contract ran out, and it was a few years before I got my next phone, the Palm Treo 680. Nice, cute, SMALL.
Then I jumped into the Fuze, with its lovely fingerprint catching, Very Odd geometric backside. Cingular loaded it with some songs that I had absolutely NO interest in, but you couldn’t delete. I was furious. I found Fuze Mobility while trying to figure out how to go about getting rid of the darn things, then XDA came to the rescue, but with the “you could brick it” warning. I think I read the instructions every night for a month before I worked up the courage to flash my first ROM. I was so nervous, I waited until we’d put the kid to bed, then my husband brought out a pint of Ben & Jerry’s he’d bought to fortify me!! Ha ha ha (There’s a lesson in that, gents…) With my first flash I was hooked! I must have flashed (mostly EnergyROMs) that sucker every other week.
But as the Fuze was getting long in the tooth, I began to think about going into Android, because I sure as heck wasn’t getting into Apple! Then WP7 was announced, so I decided to wait. I got the Surruond on the first day, and it was great.
Next came the Lumia 920, and now the Lumia 1520 (cue a line from The Hunt for Red October: “Jesus, that’s a big sucker!”).