When the mobile revolution started in Nigeria in the later part of 2001, it was like every new thing that hits the market--way expensive. Above and beyond the reach of an average Nigerian, needless to say, a few folks broke the banks to be among the first set of owners of the Mobile phone. The Motorola Talkabout T2288 (pictured below) was among the very first set of mobile phones to be imported and sold with the SIM packs. Two major telecommunication companies started operations that same year and the race was on.
I did not get on the mobile train until December 2004 when I got a SIM card (still using the number up till date), it would be another three months until I got my first phone (pictured below). I have used many phones over the years and I have tried my best to recall as many as I could, including the ones I bought and gave out. For the three month period before I got my phone, I was swapping my SIM constantly with my Dad's Nokia 3310 and my Mom's Samsung R220. Those days bring back lots of fond memories now, but back then, there was no alternative.
The purpose of this post is not to brag, but to tell you that in the world of mobile phones, I have traveled a little and I am looking forward to laying my hands on an Android Honeycomb or ICS smartphone. If not that HP decided to pull the plug on the WebOS, it was on my list of gadgets to try before moving on to the next. My Computer Journey will be accounted for in another post very soon.
My first ever mobile phone, but I had it for just 10 hours. It had no vibrate function and when I nagged, my uncle gave me his Siemens C35, which became my official first phone and I loved it dearly.
Blackberry Curve 3G:
My Current Phone, it was a good upgrade from the Curve 2 because of the 3G network capacity. I stream audio from radio stations across the globe via 3G and WiFi. With an OS upgrade to V6, the performance is better and regular updates to apps make it worth the wile. However, this phone is slow when compared to the iPhone 3GS, HTC Mozart 7.
Apple iPhone 3GS:
Sleek but not my style, a very robust app store, software interface and hardware configuration.
Blackberry Curve 2:
This is my first ever foray into the Blackberry world. I used it for about 8 months before upgrading to a Curve 3G.
HTC Mozart 7:
Simple but functional smartphone with a young but promising OS, WP7. This is my current phone and testing the OS to find the unique selling points above Blackberry OS, iOS, Android, WebOS, Symbian OS, and much more.
Nokia 1100:
Very stylish yet efficient piece of hardware.
Nokia 1600:
The most efficient of phones in terms of battery life.
Nokia 1650:
Nokia's attempt to improve on the 1600, not too cool.
Nokia 2100:
This phone with its fluorescent screen proved to be quite the ideal at that time.
Nokia 2626:
My all-time winner in the feature phone arena. This phone served me well and the battery life is impeccable, stores up to 3,000 text messages, internet-enabled. Got the job done. The FM Radio gave it an edge and its finger-friendly keypad made it a very good texting companion. It could store up to 40 notes of 4,000 characters each. It was my additional memory bank, I stored as much as I thought in it. The wap browser proved dependable and upon deleting the games, more space was made available.
Nokia 3100:
Used briefly, not outstanding.
Nokia 3110c:
This is the most rugged of phones made by Nokia since the 3310. It had all the basics and connectivity was satisfactory.
Nokia 3310:
The most popular Nokia phone in Nigeria by far, it had a lot going for it because it was the first model to enter the Nigerian market with the deregulation of the telecommunication sector.
Nokia 3410:
This phone was an upgrade on the 3310 and although it didn't become as popular as its predecessor, it was a good hardware and the games on it were pretty addictive, most especially Munkiki.
Nokia 5030:
This phone code-named Radio Phone broke the boundaries when it was announced that the FM Radio could work without the traditional earpiece as antenna.
Nokia 5200:
I loved this phone from the first day I set eyes on it. Full featured, could play music for over 10 hours and connectivity is on point.
Nokia 5230:
A light-weight version of the 5800 XpressMusic. With the same operating system, it ran most of the apps the 5800 ran.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic:
This is the most advanced Nokia phone I have used yet. The Symbian S60 V5 Operating System. Lots of apps and games available, productivity levels was very high with this device. Audio and Video recordings were off the charts. The camera flash was splendid. OS updates came at intervals and I generally enjoyed the phone. The drag was that the touchscreen was Resistive as opposed to the popular Capacitive touchscreen technology.
Nokia 6070:
This is a low feature phone whose only downside is its lack of sufficient internal storage. My dad ended up using it for a long time (about a year or so) and he enjoyed it too. It had Bluetooth, but where will you store the data?
Nokia 6280:
This 3G phone caught my eye many years ago and I went after it. A full fledged smartphone (by Symbian standards), but only Symbian S60 V3. This phone gave me lots of headache because I had to return it twice, ended up spending twice as much as I had budgeted on it. I sold it off for far less than I bought it for. It was not a pleasant experience.
Nokia 6300:
Slim, portable (unlike its predecessors) and full featured with smooth metallic keypad. Ideal for texting and web surfing wasn't too bad.
Nokia 6610i:
My first-ever color-screen phone back in the days, it was an upgrade from my Nokia dumb-phone days.
Siemens C35:
This is my second phone and back then it was my everything (how narrow-minded I was), the games were apt and a very good battery life made it a winner in my book. I gave it away though, after about five months, I had to. I didn't get another phone until seven months later - Nokia 3410.
Sony Ericsson K700:
This is the second model of Sony Ericsson I have used and with an internal memory of 40MB, a good camera and Bluetooth connectivity, it made audio recording seamless. I remember recording over 4 hours of audio during a meeting. The pictures I took with this phone are so good in quality that they can compete favorably with those taken by other feature phones.
Sony Ericsson T610:
The first model of Sony Ericsson I used, it was fully functional but unlike the K700, it had little or no internal memory and the camera was not as sharp or impressive. Connectivity was okay though because it functioned as a remote control for my computer then, when connected via Bluetooth. The battery life was not as encouraging as the other phones in its league.
Siemens A52:
I got this phone for a friend of mine back then, due to the good performance I got from my Siemens C35 then, I naturally tended towards another in the series. I had not yet used any Nokia phone, so, I didn't know any better.
LG Xenon:
This phone surprised me a great deal because I was not a fan of LG at all. However, it handled internet connection quite considerably and while not all the social apps on it worked, its slide out keypad was more than enough to make it a text-friendly phone. Multi-tasking on the phone is still primitive, but it was a good start.
While the above listed phones are in no way exhaustive, they do capture to a large extent my journey into the mobile telephony world. Looking forward to hear from you, and read about your stories as well.
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