20 years ago I bought my first mobile phone

[geekiemac]

After having a bunch of Ericsson and Nokias, finally in 2004 I had what I considered to be a first smart phone; Palm Treo 650 which later on I upgraded to the 680. It had a pressure sensitive color lcd touch screen, SD card slot to hold pictures and music, apps to buy install and customize, while there was no 3G, LTE or such high speed internet in those days, that thing still could get on the internet using EDGE (really slow). It had a built in email program and it worked fairly decently, I could send and receive sms messages and keep the conversations in a thread, load mp3 files on the SD card and play them using a third party program, take 640 x 480 pixel pictures using the built in camera, take notes and do pretty much all the basic stuff I do what anyone do with a smart phone these days.

It is absolutely mind boggling how advanced the Palm Treo was long before the iPhone even existed, how far ahead of the game they were and yet they still failed.

Palm Treo’s story should be a case study in business and marketing schools.

I had a Palm Treo 680 too ! And lots of Palm devices before that. Even though Palm OS had its flaws, it was a great OS and the hardware was also good. Until the company split up hardware and software and went separate ways - so there was no coherence in design and strategy between hardware and software any more. This is exactly the opposite way that Apple went, with their ecosystem approach.

Back in the day the Palm community was screaming for a Palm-OS based, large-touchscreen-no-hardware-keyboard kind of smartphone. The technology was there as there were full-screen Palm devices around. The know-how was there too. Sometimes, it needs a new kid on the block, with ambitions and a crazy idea, to make things move forward.

 

[nihil0]

My first mobile phone was bought by my dad when I started high school. That was 18 years ago. It was Motorola T2288. Then I had couple of Nokias (3210 and 3310). Then for my 18th birthday I bought myself Sony Ericsson T310 because it had opportunity to play polyphonic MIDI ringtones and it was my first phone with camera (detachable). After that I had some crappy Nokia, after that Sony Ericsson K550 & K610 and after that I bought myself couple of Android phones (every year). In 2014 I bought my first iPhone (6+). Then 7 and now I have XS. By the way, iPhones were the phones I kept for longest time, usually I switched phones after 1 year.

 

[SBlue1]

I remember how cool it was to shoot photos just like that, no bulky camera to carry around, just take the phone and point and shoot. Now when I see those blurry 800x600 pixel photos I have to smile.

 

[dontwalkhand]

My first phone was the Samsung SGH-E105 when I was 14 (or something like that) with T-Mobile. From there I had the following phones:

Motorla RAZR
T-Mobile Wing
BlackBerry Pearl
BlackBerry Curve
iPhone 2G
iPhone 3G
BlackBerry Bold 9900
BlackBerry Curve 8900
BlackBerry Storm (Gone within a week)
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4
iPhone 5
iPhone 6
iPhone 6s
iPhone 7
iPhone 8
iPhone X

Not sure the exact order, but this is it.

 

[bushman4]

first phone was a Motorola Startac. the number you were dialing actually lit up across the top. It had an interchangeable battery but not much life to them. But for the 90’s it was cool even though the reception sucked