My mobile history....pt4

As far as I was aware, I had done with "normal" phones. The last Nokia (the 6260) had convinced me for good that smartphones were the way to go so off it went to Ebay and the hunt was on for the perfect smartphone.

The hunt ended quite quickly as back then, there really weren't many options. I ended up buying an Orange SPV C500 (same as a Imate SP3). Candybar design, nice big 240x320 screen and Windows Mobile. I really, really ought to have loved this phone. It felt great in the hand and the screen was lovely. I fell in love with the way the OS worked - if I wanted to call someone or text them or anything, I started typing their name on the keypad and it found the person and gave me options.

It's how I have liked my phones to work ever since. It took me a while to realise the difference between how phones had forced me to work before: decide I want to text someone, I first had to write the text and then decide who to send it to. Bit picky, but I liked it the other way round and Windows Mobile let me do that.

But damn! Was it slow? It froze all the time, it needed re-booting three times each day and just in general use it crawled....ten seconds to open a menu!

So - having already got in unlocked from Orange (I have stuck with T-Mobile through all of this - probably one of their most loyal customers!), I proceeded to re-flash the firmware (upgrade the software in the phone) to a non-networked one, so it didn't say "Orange" when you switched it on and got rid of all their crappy menus. Then did the sugar-cube trick which cleaned up the outside and all of a sudden I had a shiny, network-free phone.

Ebay time.

I decided that I needed a touchscreen again. And Windows Mobile. So I talked very nicely to T-Mobile (remember - I am one of their best customers!) and upgraded early and landed myself a black MDA Compact.

NOW I was happy. It was shorter than the previous phone, no thicker, and a bit wider but it had a great screen. And it was a touchscreen. So I had better games.

Oh - yes it was faster, but overall it did nothing more than the C500. But I loved it all the same and kept it for almost a year (a record for me!).

But temptation came....Jay at work had an O2 version of the T-Mobile Vario - THAT had a keyboard AND a touchscreen. A lovely sliding-out keyboard no less. Somehow I managed to convince myself to sell the Compact to Stuart (who's "Boggy's Blog" never gets updated) and found myself a T-Mobile Vario.

What to say about that? It was the same as the Compact but had a keyboard. A bad keyboard that was impossible to type on really. And when the keyboard slid out the screen was supposed to rotate.....well it did. Eventually. It was also twice as thick, three times as heavy and uglier than Mrs Ugly's ugly sister on ugly night.

I cried for my Compact but Stuart was never going to let me have it back. So within a week I was Ebay-bound again and......WOW!!! There was a NEW Compact! The Compact II. The same size and shape as my old Compact but better! I had to have it!

I got it! It was shite. It was slow. S-l-o-w. They put a new version of Windows Mobile in it but forgot to upgrade the processor or the memory. I was getting used to crying now. Right then I promised myself that I would buy NO MORE WINDOWS PHONES!

How long did THAT last?