Inspired by Robb Knight's post, I thought I'd finish my own phones I've owned post.

2001 - The Beginning

My first was a Siemens C35i which I had for a while until I was climbing on some rocks over the sea, slipped, fell, and had it fall out of my pocket into the water. We found it when the tide went out a few hours later. I have this vague memory of "crying" to show my parents that I was taking it seriously. My Dad then replaced it with a Siemens M35i, the waterproof version of the C35i... Both of these phones had an amazing ray casting 3D maze game on them, at least it seemed amazing at the time.

Technically before I properly got my first phone I had a couple of false starts. First where my brother "gave" me his Orange Bosche 509e and then wanted it back a week later. Then I briefly had some kind of Trium, possibly an "xs", which broke after a few days.

2004 - Colour

I had the C35i until July 2004, when I then had saved up enough money from my summer IT support job to buy a colour screen phone, a Sharp GX15. I remember regularly sitting waiting outside a physics classroom at college playing simple Java games that I'd paid for on whatever Vodafone's portal was at the time. It was also the first time I got to take (very short!) videos and VGA pictures. I also had this nervous tick where I'd hold the phone in my pocket and slide the battery cover on and off repeatedly. I did this so many times that I wore down the plastic nobble that kept the cover on.

2007 - Camera

Then part way through university I got a phone with a decent camera, a Sony Ericsson K800i. I remember it such was a chunky phone, but meant I didn't have to take a separate digital camera on nights out. I also remember installing some kind of universal IM "app" (maybe meebo?) and using that to chat with friends out and about.

This was quite possibly the peak of mobile phones for me.

I technically also owned a T-Mobile G1, the first Android phone, but it was such an awful phone and Android was so useless at the time that I only used it to develop apps on, but never as my actual phone.

2010 - Smart

My first smart-phone was an HTC Nexus One. I got it for free during a meeting with an Android Developer advocate, I think a few weeks before it was generally available in the UK. it also had a crack in the screen before it was available in the UK from putting it the pocket of my skinny jeans. The battery gave up after a couple of years.

Next was a Sony Xperia U in 2012, a lovely tiny phone with a weird LED light strip. It initially ran Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but then got an upgrade to Android 4 that made the phone completely unusably slow, so unfortunately that had to be replaced after just over a year.

I replaced it with with a Moto G, which I had until 2016. The Moto G had replaceable back covers to make it look less like a boring black slab, the battery eventually gave up.

In that time I also briefly used a white Sony Xperia Z3 for a few months that was a loan from work. The phone used to get so hot during use that it melted some of the glue holding the back cover on, which came loose and the camera filled with dust from my pocket.

Then in 2016, one of the best phones I've ever owned - the Nextbit Robin. It was beautiful, colourful, everything other phones aren't. Strangers would accost me in the street to pass comment on it. I had this phone for three years, and again, the battery wasn't able to hold charge anymore. I looked around for a replacement battery but was sadly unable to find one, I think I may still be using this phone now if I could.

We're up to 2019 now, and I got a very boring Nokia 6.2, a generic black glass phone. It was incredibly slippery and it literally slipped out of my cold hands one day in the kitchen and the screen shattered, which I has replaced. I had this phone until July last year (2023) when I went smartphoneless. It now lives in the car and serves as my satnav.

2023 - Dumb

I now use a green Nokia 2660 Flip. It makes calls and texts. Snapping it shut to end phone calls is so incredibly satisfying. In theory this phone will last until I lose it / break it / it wears out. it's not going to get software updates that make it unusable and the battery is replaceable.