I love smartphones! Why?? It all started when I damaged my first phone back when I was in the Army. It was an Alcatel, I think! I lost all my phone numbers, and I made it a condition that any phone I get from now on *HAD* to support the ability to back up my phone numbers.At first it was a manual job. I had a piece of paper I kept in my wallet, with all the numbers, but I knew there should be a way of doing this. I didnt want to do this manually anymore..
I left the Army, and went to University. I discovered the ability to create my own logos and ringtones with a piece of software, but wasn't entrepreneurial enough to make money like a lot of people did back then. I just did it for friends! This software, also allowed me to back up my phone to a database where I could actually adjust the numbers.
I was using Nokias a lot. I had a business grade Nokia for a long, long time and it was a perfect phone. Nokia was clever enough to realise that the Interface had to be intuitive, and tried not to change it to alienate there growing customer base. I remember when everyone had a Nokia 3310 at one point!
However, Nokias still didn't do it automatically. Thats when I discovered Smartphones.. well actually an Orange SPV C500 running the Windows Mobile OS. I could use ActiveSync to sync not just my contacts with Outlook, but also my calendar. It was brilliant, and as a longtime Orange User I was over the moon.. It even allowed me to download programs onto the device, but they never seemd to work that well.
A bonus of this phone, was that the back-up cable was USB to Mini-USB and it also charged the phone. It was a no brainer, to use this lead as the charger. I had this phone for about three years, and its still my backup phone sitting in my drawer just in case it all goes wrong.
When I got back from travelling, I used a friends old Orange SPV C550 for a long time, and I had discovered the ability to surf the web using my phone. I was always hoping that Orange would give me a decent data package, so it wouldn't cost me much but it seemed to be about £10 for 1mb per month. It just wasn't good enough. I switched providers..
When I joined T-Mobile I opted to move away from Windows Mobile, and back to Nokia with the Symbian S60 OS. It was pretty simple, and had an extremely easy to use intuitive OS. I could even download programs onto my Nokia e51. When my business phone came up for renewal, I even chose a black e51.. why?? Well, if the battery died on one then I could swap them out really easy. A 2gb micro-SD card is great to store some music on, and I even discovered th pain of using Bluetooth headsets. I still swear by a single headphone at the end of a wire for my handsfree kit!
Anyway my contract has lapsed about four months ago and I have been on the lookout for a new phone... you are probably thinking the Apple iPhone..
