Mobile phones

I bought my very first mobile phone on my very first proper summer job paycheck. It was a Nokia, of course.

Nokia 3210, summer of 2000 — 2.6.2001

3210 was an excellent phone. Very sturdy and weighed just enough. Some new devices feel like toy phones (for example the 5300 music phone) but 3210 felt like a super Gadget.

Nokia 3330, 2.6.2001 — 14.1.2006

I got Nokia 3330 as a graduation present. It was a good phone, with a good Snake II game. I had to buy a new battery for it right away because the original was probably faulty (emptied very quickly). There had been a battery problem with a batch of 3330s. I decided to buy a new phone (Nokia 6101) when I got tired of the monochrome screen and the battery had started to “leak” again. I had this for 4.5 years. Not bad.

Nokia 6101, 14.1.2006 — 7./16.10.2006

I did lots of “research” and couldn’t get Nokia 6101 out of my head. I compared it to lots of other Nokia models but it just looked so nice. I also had to try a clamshell phone even though some of my friends told me they didn’t like them. Well, they have man-hands — maybe small clamshells fit better for women. I bought this as a bit of a birthday present.

The main gripe about this phone is that it got too popular. And because it has a distinctive look it’s easier to spot all those people who have the same phone as I do. I never minded the external antenna even though some people couldn’t understand why it has to be there. I found it very handy because it made it easier to pick the phone up from the phone pocket in my bag. The clam function was nice and snappy and the buttons amazingly large. Another gripe was the pre-installed carrier software which showed up as a logo when the phone was turned on/off, and also when the cover was open, a carrier-specific background showed up on the mini screen. I wouldn’t have minded it if it wasn’t a wrong carrier.

Nokia N73, 7.10. or 16.10..2006 –

I started talking about buying Nokia N73 in August 2006. And boy did I talk about it… Sure, it would’ve been a big investment (at the time the phone was around 600 €) so I had to think “do I dare.” I thought about it thoroughly, wrote down all sorts of questions and visited the Nokia store to get answers to them. In October I ended up buying a SIM-locked phone in a package deal because I was planning on switching the carrier anyway.

Now, this is my kinda phone, or should I say ‘multimedia computer’. I fell in love with how N73 looks compared to all the other Nseries phones, and the lens cover is just magnificent! S60 is certainly the platform for me — it’s expandable, customisable, and I just love it how a phone is not just a phone (luckily it works as a phone anyway). After buying N73 I’ve started getting curious about all things happening in the mobile world (new models etc.). As I’ve said many many times, the active idle screen is heaven-sent.

I’ve been looking at the reviews on N95 with a bit of regret but I’ve just bought miniSD card and N95 uses microSD so maybe that’ll keep me from buying an N95 right away… The rumoured N97 is said to be using miniSD so it could be a competitor to N73 — if it is ever released. I did know about N75 and N95 before deciding on N73 so also in that regard it has nothing to worry about.