Motorola StarTAC

My very first phone was a hand-me-down from my dad. It was 1998 and I was 12 at the time. Before you accuse me of being a spoiled kid, it was really a necessity rather than a luxury. I had just moved to a civil war-torn Indonesia then. The remnants of the violence was still very much visible, and the danger of another uprising was always looming. Hotel windows were broken, rows upon rows of shops were defaced and fear was still the prevalent in city. So my dad gave me his phone as a safety measure.

Ericsson T10

As the turmoil of the times slowly receded and peace finally prevailed again, I began to see cellphone as a cool accessory rather than a lifeline. I was flipping through my favorite magazine at that time, the now defunct Smash Hits, I came across the coolest ad a 13 year old had ever seen. A white page with multicolored phones lined up one after another. It was too cool and Santa sent me one in turquoise.

Nokia 8210

Then clamshell phones became soo yesterday. Nokia candybars became the in thing. And you could buy all these different covers to match your phone to your clothes.
At that time, I didn’t have to wear uniform to school so changing covers was sure hand.
I remember having a ton of covers from Nokia originals to the rip off ones…until I was robbed one day when I was back in Malaysia. And lost my phones along with my Oakleys. Devastation befell…

Nokia 8310

…but not for long! By then I had moved to Singapore, the land of amazing gadgetry for low, low price. I got the upgraded model the 8310 which I remember loving very dearly since it was so cute and tiny!

Nokia 7210

But then suddenly phones had color screens! I mean “snake” with color screens would be infinitely more fun than black pixeled “snake”! So I had to jump on the color bandwagon too!

Motorola V600

After the streak of Nokias, I finally switched to Motorola because it was one of the few early quad band phones with that amazing Bluetooth technology that allowed you to have a wireless earpiece. It even had a camera! I was moving over to Canada then and I needed a quad band phone so I could use it in North American and Asia without having to perpetually switch between two phones. So this was an investment. It still is the most expensive phone I ever owned to date. It lasted me two good years before the screen finally gave way.

Nokia 6131

But by then I really couldn’t care much about phones anymore. Canadians don’t really have craze for gadgetry like Asians do. No one texted me. They called. So all I needed was something I could receive and make calls with. Hence came a very simple Nokia 6131, which too lasted me two years.

And of course now I work for a telco. Phones have become more like business and less of a cool item. So I have two now, which most of you have probably seen. Nothing spectacular. The HTC S630 for my personal line, the LG Viewty KU990R for work.

As for my upcoming phone, I’m impatiently waiting for the Palm Pre. I’ve fallen madly in love with QWERTY phones and there aren’t many out there to choose from (Blackberries aside). We’ll see what Engadget and CNET say about the Pre when it’s released. If it falls short, I guess I would have to settle for the HTC Dream or a Nokia E71.

And on a not-too-unrelated note, here’s a hilarious video on Cell Phone Reunion.

So dear readers, what phones did you own? Any models you particularly adored? What about phones you’re on the lookout for? And OMG, do you remember SNAKE?

Related posts:

1. Review: LG Viewty KU990R

Having just returned from a technology unsavvy country such as Canada, I wasn’t going to spend too much money on something I rarely use. But as much as I hate to admit, I’m quite the gadget enthusiast. Looks don’t matter too much. For me, the more functions the phone has, the more bang for my buck. So, I looked hard for a smartphone with wi-fi access and a QWERTY keyboard. The pool of the latest phones quickly narrowed down to two: Sony Ericsson P1 and HTC S730.

Sony Ericsson’s P1 QWERTY felt strange to the touch. HTC S730 lacked a touch screen. But I ultimately let ergonomics win me over and chose the HTC S730.

HTC S730 Review

So I’ve been using the HTC S730 for about a week now. The features are endless so I can’t say I know how to fully operate the phone but I’d say I’m an intermediate-advanced user. I’m not a professional phone review, so I won’t go into meticulous details. Thought I’d just make list of pros and cons that anyone considering to buy this should know and then wrap it with my concluding opinion.

Pros

• Latest connectivity: 3.5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSPA and Internet Sharing.
• Two Good Cameras: Main camera has 2 Megapixels. Secondary VGA camera for self-camwhoring. No flash but both capture light very well!
• Useful functions: Microsoft Office, QWERTY Keyboard, MSN Messenger, Adobe Reader, RSS Aggregator and Flash Lite Player.
• Microsoft Windows Mobile is great for downloading many free programs like Skype on the phone.

Cons

• Runs on Windows Mobile: Also means that it’s slow and inefficient in starting up both the phone and applications.
• Badly-designed menus and confirmations: The developer who programmed the menu and the commands should really be shot. Everything is counter-intuitive. For example, I would expect that when I transfer SIM contacts to the phone, I’d find it under the Contacts menu or possibly under Settings. But no, the developer had to put it in an application called SIM Manager filed under a Folder called Expert – as if transferring contacts is an advanced use.
• Badly-design file explorer: The file explorer is designed to mirror normal PC Windows. It’s very functional on a computer but quite a drag on a phone. I don’t want to be looking through phone system files while searching for a file I just sent from my computer. It’s very dangerous since I could accidentally delete something vital for phone operations.

Final Verdict

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

HTC clearly did a good job taking care of the ergonomics and design. The keyboard and keypad are both fairly comfortable to use – though I would have preferred the keyboard keys to be slightly larger. The camera is amazing for a 2 megapixel. Photos are sharp, colors are bright even in poor light and without a flash. Battery is decent; it lasted about two days with some bluetooth, wi-fi and 30 mins of phone calls. The matte gray finish looks quite elegant and professional. Definitely something you could bring to the office and look good in.

The biggest problem is with its operating system. Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 needs to go back to the drawing board. It’s slow, cumbersome and can barely sustain itself in a phone with 256MB ROM + 64MB RAM. The menus are a pain to use. Even for a gadget geek like me, I had to refer to the instructions manual to do some very basic things like deleting contacts.

With all that said, this is an amazing smartphone for a low price. To be precise, I got it FREE for a 2 year contract. I’d pay a few hundred for this, if I had to. This is a Blackberry and more. It’s designed for the business user, but after holding a few MSN conversations with it and checking my RSS subscriptions on it, I’d say it can definitely be used for leisure too!

Hope you enjoyed this haphazard review. Will sweep for grammatical and spelling errors tomorrow morning. I may also add a few camera samples. I’m too sleepy now. Sorry!

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