In Past Tense: The story of Ivan's phones

09 February 2018
Past Tense is our latest feature where we tell how the industry evolved and how it shaped us, one phone at a time.

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  • M
  • Max
  • Mvv
  • 12 Feb 2018

That's quite okay, I'm more than willing to say "never" instead - no matter what, I will never, ever choose an Apple product willingly. There you go...

    Nokia 3230 (my 1st phone with a camera & music, sea water ruined it, 2006), N91 (maps, GPS 2006-2009), N97 (slider QWERTY, 2009-2011), BB Bold 2 9100 (awesome keypad, fast OS, premium build, 2010-2013), SGS2 (my 1st galaxy/android, 2011-2014), iPhone 4 (1st iPhone, I could only afford it 3 years after it launched, 2013-2017), Sony Z1 Compact (when other phones were growing unwieldy, this was a gem, poor camera though, 2014-2016), SGS7 (superb camera, still is miles ahead of most phones, poor battery life, 2016-), BB KeyONE (still dunno why I bought this one..primary phone as of now, 2017-). Have also bought and worked with BB Pearl, Nokia 5500 Music, SGS3, Nexus 5, Nokia 8 for the missus.

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      • MobileMan
      • sSJ
      • 12 Feb 2018

      Oh , such articles required more on GSM Arena ,

      My First Phones ( Fathers ) was Nokia 3310 ( Famous one ) & it was one fabulous device , strong & perfect , hanging was never a issue. My very first brush with Mobile Phones was the Mitsubishi Phone ( Dont remember model though i have it in Drawer ) , which was purchased 17 years ago , & is like a brick. with a antenna to open up for more coverage (Vintage).
      Nokia 1100 , 1101 , the last nokia phone was Nokia Lumia 520. I also used Samsung CDMA Feature Phones like Omnia which was next to Nokia , though not Nokia class, back then we used to full charge.
      I had my first Smartphone Brush with Samsung Galaxy Pocket , but within 2 Years it started showing weird signs of Laggy Laggy Behaviour , my SMS would automatically get Printed , Numbers dialled were different than which i dialled ( the CPU could not handle it ) , that Android has come a long way is what i admit.
      My First Sony Phone Xperia P , was my first Brush with Polish Refined Lag - Free Android , and with the most excellent screen of the time. ( The WRGB Pixel arrangement is the best LCD screen till date ( I dont know why sony discontinued that screen tech.) , but sunlight legibility was the most excellent ( Even Samsung S6 cant match ) , the brightness & contrast was pretty high , Pixel density was Retina grade ( 296ppi) , Camera the best with my first Exmor R sensor , the next models Xperia L etc. were disappointment , unfortunately this excellent phone was stolen.
      My next phone Samsung Grand 2 , better not talk about it , as it became laggy in one year , the Android 4.4 Update was a disaster , the only good thing was the camera.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • KZ8
        • 12 Feb 2018

        What the feature you like most and you missed most? For me, it's stereo speaker and Qwerty keyboard..

          zacsaturday, 11 Feb 2018How'd you find the Galaxy S7 Edge since you disliked the S6?Loved the big screen and great battery life. At that point TouchWiz had gotten much better. But I still couldn't learn to love it, so I switched yet again.

            Anonymous, 11 Feb 2018Hi, Ivan do you like the removable battery? Not really. If battery life is great, I don't ever think about swapping batteries.

              • D
              • AnonD-724103
              • 6ue
              • 12 Feb 2018

              @Ivan I also have the same criteria as you. But the last Android I personally used was a MOTO G3. The phone was superb no problems etc except until one day i felt it vibrating too much in my pocket. Not calls or messages. So I took it out and was surprised to see a notification "although your pin/password was correct your phone has been reset. " That was the message! no cancel button only ok. the phone had reset itself completely!!! when it was in my pocket. I lost all my photos, messages etc.! Also the phone was encrypted!
              i was sad. i went and bought an iphone 6.
              the moto g3 then started behaving weirdly. in the next 5 months it reset itself four times!!!!! i then stopped using it.
              i tried both the pixel & pixel 2 and loved it but was afraid the same thing would happen! also the same with s7 s8. wanted to go for it but i'm afraid the same thing will happen!!!!
              i posted this issue in xda forums but got no reply. right now i'm using iphone x.

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                • ejrome
                • PF7
                • 12 Feb 2018

                I started with the LG optimus one which was quite the device at its time.
                Then shifted to an xperia ray, which I'm still using for backup now (txt,call).
                My favorite would be the 1st gen moto G, which is as stock android as it can get.
                I had a xiaomi redmi 2 which I've flashed with countless custom roms.
                Currently on a BB Priv, with the worst user experience from the heating issues.

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                  • AnonD-736924
                  • f}F
                  • 12 Feb 2018

                  Nokia 3310, Nokia 3220, Nokia 5300, Nokia N70 ME, Nokia 5530, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S8 using at the moment (Honourable mentions : Nokia 102, Nokia 105 and 2 other Nokia phones). I didn't even realized I used so many until I started to count . Damn.

                    First real phone was a nokia 3310 l. I was a sophomore in high school and that was way back 2004. Two years after, had a motorola razr v3 upon entering college. I loved that phone so much that i still have it with me even though it's practically dead. Another 2 years after, settled with the sony ericsson s312. Was more of a budget purchase but it was still pretty ok. After a year, it broke and i had to buy a local brand since i was just about to graduate college and had no real money. Found an online content writing job and upgraded to the nokia e7: favorite phone with a physical keyboard. It's 6 years old now and still alive. One year after, bought the s4 but i didn't really like it. A year after, bought the note4 and was hooked with the note line ever since. Had it with me for almost 3 years before i accidentally dipped it in seawater. Bought the note7 a few months after but owned it for only a month due to recall. Decided to go for a cheap mid ranger in the j7 prime for a year, waiting for the note8 that i now rock. So 10 phones over the course of 14 years.

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                      • AnonD-121521
                      • 3Jn
                      • 12 Feb 2018

                      What still gets me everutime is that if i dig out my old sony/ericsson p800's or p910i's and show them to 20 year olds,they all gasp nd get realy excited when i show them running old lucas art snes games,they all seem to think they are some cutting edge new graphics system games.
                      ive even lied to some students at out local media "university" and told them the p800 was brand new "secret" phone technology hidden in a dummy body,running new games,,And they believe it !! but then those old games do still looking amazing compared to most modern games,bring back cell shading !! Monkey island,dott,grim fandango,all decades old,all look and play better than almost anything new..

                        Philips Diga, Motorola T180, Motorola C333, Siemens M55, Siemens M65, Nokia N70 (here i fell in love with Symbian). Nokia N73, Nokia 5730 XM, Nokia C6 (still missing hardware qwerty keyboard), Xperia S (Loved the phone but hated Android), Lumia 640 (To try out WM, loved it) Lumia 950, Lumia 950Xl and finally, bought Nokia 808 Purewiev, was too poor back then to own it, finally i do. Best camera till today, of course 950XL has great camera also, better than Pixel.

                          • D
                          • AnonD-687126
                          • vap
                          • 12 Feb 2018

                          And yeah, the iPhone 4 was a lovely little pill of a phone. Just a neat little thing.

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                            • AnonD-687126
                            • vap
                            • 12 Feb 2018

                            My daughter's first phone was a Nokia E71.
                            It was early days of Android, but she want a keyboard, and was just attracted to this phone.

                            Okay, but one day she asked whether the phone could run on either our wifi or mobile data without manually changing between them. An evening of googling for answers and lots of frustration, and I had forms a very strong opinion of Symbian.

                              My first smartphone was a Nokia 6681. It was cool with it's sliding camera cover, sturdy body and Symbian OS. Then I had a 5700XM, E66, E5 (still have it), C6-01 and then I switched to Android with a Moto Razr Maxx, Galaxy S3, Nexus 5 (have to admit one of my top 3), Note 4, Note 5 (another one on my top 3), S7 and now a Note 8.

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                                • AnonD-85136
                                • 6Ps
                                • 11 Feb 2018

                                I always love my k700i, w550, w550, Xperia p1, Xperia x10, Xperia vivaz, Xperia TX, Xperia Z5 Premium......continue
                                I never have disappointed with Sony's phones, always a great friend

                                  My list of devices is not much long..
                                  I started with nokia 3310 which was my dad’s phone..then switched to nokia 6303 classic ( it’s handiness and steel body frame was something which i still admire)...then came the samsung monte s5620 which introduced me to ‘mods and patches’ which was sort of today’s android custom roms (the htc mod was superb)..then i made the decision to buy htc device, so i bought htc one v (that small chin at the bottom attracted me) instead to nokia c7...after using roms and stuff got myself a htc one m8 (for that dual camera 3d thing, metal curved body, front facing speakers and good xda support)...now switched to ios with iphone 6s (mainly due to 3d touch and rose gold color, the htc broke down due to water problem)..

                                  Was thinking to switch back to android due to the fact that a person who used to flash 3-4 roms in a week.. cant stay long on a closed and boring (sorry) ecosystem, where only the customization you can do is changing the wallpapers and moving the icons here and there..
                                  But no phone had the features i wanted.. so skipped from buying the phone in 2017, let’s see what 2018 brings in... (was thinking of honor view 10, but unavailable in my country)...

                                  That’s it..

                                    I completely agree with Ivan about one thing. IPhone 4/4s was probably best apple device ever released, just that insane design, screen density and camera, it was something special. What apple created now it just shadow of its glory. Samsung is way better now with huge, bezeless and curved screens

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                                      • AnonD-82756
                                      • nGg
                                      • 11 Feb 2018

                                      My first ever smartphone was a Samsung i8910 Omnia HD running Symbian 9.4 Series 60 rel. 5.

                                        My first smartphone was optimus G than later I upgraded to G Pro (which I still have and use it for watching movies etc) and really love its big screen I also used samsung S4 which I sold due to lag and had Note 3 best phone I ever used at that time but I sold it to a friend after 5months now I have G2 and love but I miss big screen

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