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    First mobile phone

    I'd avoided it for a long time; I'd been living in London a while and thought mobile phone owners were tossers. I persevered with a British Telecom pager for a while. But I eventually invested in an Ericsson PF768 (although mine was black).



    I also remember, when I signed up for the plan, the salesperson offered an option called 'short message service', for an extra £1/month. He outlined how I could send little text snippets to other phones.

    His pitch sounded half-hearted. But at the time I was thinking: "Fuck, it's like email, but it arrives on someone's phone. Instantly. Brilliant!" When I first sent one of these it was like voodoo. Six months later, it had completely exploded and everyone was at it.

    If I had a gram of business acumen, I'd be rich by now.

    #2
    First mobile phone



    I had a firm-issued Blackberry before this, but only used it for email.

    Life was simpler then.

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      #3
      First mobile phone

      ursus arctos wrote:
      Those things had a very high resale value for years, among people who were heavy phone users. The battery life was legendary.

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        #4
        First mobile phone

        You could also drop them on the pavement without any real consequences.

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          #5
          First mobile phone

          I resisted until I went to university (in 2003), when my mum, anxious to keep in touch but knowing I didn't want to get one, bought herself a new one specifically so she could give me her old one. It was basically a snazzed-up Orange branded version of the one ursus has posted there, only the keyboard looked a bit different and had an orange (geddit?!) backlight.

          My current phone is something like the fourth one I've ever owned, and I think only the second that I bought brand new (after its predecessor, which I'd paid £30 for and had for about three years, was taken off me in a mugging in La Bombonera two weeks after I moved down here).

          I'll have had that current one for five years if I reach the end of April with it. The screen's got an actual hole in it where I slipped off a stair in a bar and pressed the screen (in my pocket) into the end of a bannister, you can drop it from my head height (so six feet up) onto concrete without anything more serious than the numberpad cover coming off and having to be pressed back into place (which is dead easy), and I can still go for about five days between charges. Okay, I can't get online with it, or record things on it, or take photos with it, but I think I've got pretty good value out of it, all in all.

          Oh, and not only has no-one nicked it, someone once tried to mug me whilst I was holding it in my hand sending my girlfriend a text, and after taking one look at it decided it wasn't even worth snatching out of my hand. That was the moment I realised I'd bought the right phone. Joel Richards was with me when it happened, and having just put his iPhone back in his pocket before the guy walked into view, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

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            #6
            First mobile phone

            Mine was one of these Motorola flip phones that were massive anyway but, as mine was second hand, I had to have a second battery in the case which made it look like something you would rescue from the bottom of the pool for your life-saving badge.



            However, it was indestructible unlike my current I-phone. It also wasn't set up for me to be plagued by texts

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              #7
              First mobile phone

              Stumpy Pepys wrote:
              Originally posted by ursus arctos
              Those things had a very high resale value for years, among people who were heavy phone users. The battery life was legendary.
              That (the 6310, wasn't it?) was my 2nd mobile phone. I've still got it in a drawer, upstairs, in case of ...something! I used to see policemen wearing them on their utility belts years after I stopped using mine. They were mega-reliable.

              My first mobile was...

              -


              -

              ...though on Orange, not Bell of course! I got the image from here. That site may be of use to others on this thread, I'm guessing.

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                #8
                First mobile phone

                By around 2000 we were using the Unbreakable Nokia upthread. But frustratingly I can't find our first on Google images, don't know what brand it was.

                It wasn't ludicrously large, but I'm sure I remember it didn't have a display, just four red LEDs which denoted either signal strength or battery power, not sure which. The buttons made a click when you pressed them; battery life and signal were crap. This was some time between 93 and 96 I would guess. May have been unique to the UK.

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                  #9
                  First mobile phone

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                    #10
                    First mobile phone

                    Sits wrote: By around 2000 we were using the Unbreakable Nokia upthread. But frustratingly I can't find our first on Google images, don't know what brand it was.

                    It wasn't ludicrously large, but I'm sure I remember it didn't have a display, just four red LEDs which denoted either signal strength or battery power, not sure which. The buttons made a click when you pressed them; battery life and signal were crap. This was some time between 93 and 96 I would guess. May have been unique to the UK.
                    .

                    Actually it may have been this one:

                    Those italics ring a bell. That aerial? Retractable. All mod cons.

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                      #11
                      First mobile phone

                      This was mine - mid-90s?


                      The Dancall dc1 is more than just another mobile phone - It's smart as well as simple. Orange aim to keep everything simple so the Dancall dc1 phone offers the most advanced features yet is very easy to use.
                      Phone Features

                      LCD Screen including a 3 line Information Display
                      Phone directory memory storing up to 85 names and numbers
                      Compact & lightweight
                      Menu driven operation
                      Caller ID incoming & outgoing
                      Read SMS Text Messages
                      Included slim NiCad battery gives up to16 hours standby or 60 minutes talktime
                      One key calling
                      Any key answer
                      Adjustable tone and volume ringer
                      Stores last 10 dialled, received & missed calls
                      Signal, battery & status indicators
                      Phone security lock
                      SIM card security lock
                      Keypad lock
                      Restricted dialling option
                      Complete with rapid Mains Charger

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                        #12
                        First mobile phone

                        Not sure if it was my first, but I loved my Siemens c35- a fantastic piece of design and a joy to use

                        Note the "internet" setting.

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                          #13
                          First mobile phone

                          I think it was this effort. Around 1996/97. Definitely an Alcatel.

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                            #14
                            First mobile phone

                            Ericsson GA628, bought it in 2000, it was the cheapest phone on the cheapest tariff. I was single at the time, so rarely used it.

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                              #15
                              First mobile phone

                              These days, I roll with a Nokia 105 which is a superb phone, I probably charge it once every 10 days. I've got a work iPhone, which I use to check emails when I'm in the pub.

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                                #16
                                First mobile phone

                                ursus arctos wrote:
                                Ha, that was my first phone too.

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                                  #17
                                  First mobile phone

                                  shackleford wrote:
                                  Ahh, is that the Phillips Savvy? Mine was the Orange version of this, fourteen years ago this month. I was 21, had never wanted one before and was one of those people who rather looked down on the whole 'mobile phone' thing for a couple of years, but then I eventually let my friends badger me into getting one as they — already established mobile users — even by then couldn't handle the weirdness of me being incommunicado and unlocatable. I'd always hated the look of Nokias and the few times I'd handled other people's I found the menus horribly unintuitive and clunky, so iconoclastic and reluctant young me went for this bottom-of-the-range brick instead. £30 new, as I recall, from an Orange shop in Aberystwyth.Such a basic starter phone, my mum had already owned one for six months — and maybe a year later my c.80-year-old grandparents acquired one too (I think the only mobile they ever owned), so I was able to confidently show them around its menus and plethora of hi-tech features, all of which my grandpa wrote down carefully on a succession of Post-It notes.

                                  Mine lasted a year and a half, which meant it had progressed from being a Bronze Age model even when I bought it to being a fully Stone Age relic by that stage, when its screen gave out. I replaced it with a Sony J70e:I think (with hindsight) this was just about on its way out of stock at the time, so it instantly became an oddity — certainly I only remember ever seeing one or two other people using one. It was a lot more elegant than the clunky omnipresent Nokias, though, and the controls made liberal use of its unique side-mounted "jog dial"; this pic shows it a little better:. I got this also for about £30, and it proved outstanding value for money as it lasted me six and a half years, onl finally replaced at the start of Feb 2009.

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                                    #18
                                    First mobile phone

                                    Still reckon the Nokia 8310 was the best phone I ever had.

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                                      #19
                                      First mobile phone

                                      Surely the Model T Ford of mobiles was the Nokia 3210?

                                      At one point in the early 2000s all four members of the Sits Sydney Chapter over the age of 10 had one. The kids used to get our hand-me-downs, snazzed up with fancy covers for sale all over town. Actually these never really fitted properly.

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                                        #20
                                        First mobile phone

                                        steveeeeeeeee wrote: Ericsson GA628, bought it in 2000, it was the cheapest phone on the cheapest tariff. I was single at the time, so rarely used it.

                                        I think this is what I had too. Bought in 1999, on the old One2One network. Lost signal most of the time I was indoors. Since then I've had just about every Nokia candy bar phone, think the last I had was the E50. Then smartphones since.

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                                          #21
                                          First mobile phone

                                          Yes, I think that, in a recent poll, everyone over 20 worldwide has owned a 3210.

                                          I had one of these Nokia 6500 which I absolutely loved

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                                            #22
                                            First mobile phone

                                            Sits wrote: Surely the Model T Ford of mobiles was the Nokia 3210?

                                            I'd argue the 5110 was the first really big mass-market mobile (at least in Europe).

                                            The 3210 was, however, a big move forward—it had an internal antenna and was significantly thinner.

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                                              #23
                                              First mobile phone

                                              Actually though, the 3210 outsold the 5110 by some distance, so you're probably right.

                                              Although Nokia's biggest-ever selling phone was this one:

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                                                #24
                                                First mobile phone

                                                shackleford wrote:
                                                Yep. That.

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                                                  #25
                                                  First mobile phone

                                                  Stumpy Pepys wrote: Still reckon the Nokia 8310 was the best phone I ever had.

                                                  Oh, and this. Great phone.

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