Too many to mention. Here's some though:
1. Nokia 252 (AMPS only, segment display with dot matrix area for letters/numbers. No features, games, not even texting, only calls. my first cellular phone in '98.)
2. Nokia 5100-series, this lasted me until mid-2010. I got used to them, the UI, the shortcuts. They were built like tanks, lasted forever, and had endless customizations, from faceplates, to LED mods, to antenna flashers. The last one was a 5185i via Page Plus that I was still using in 2010 until the battery could no longer keep up and boss handed me an iPhone.
3. iPhone 3GS, my intro to Apple. This phone was magical to me. It turned into literally anything I needed it to be, thanks to something called 'skeuomorphism' which I still cling to today with undying passion. It made the phone turn into a radio, or a notepad, or a camera. It was so fun to use, that I upgraded to:
4. iPhone 4. Even better, more HD looking 'retina' display making the UI pop. Hey, the future was here and it was glorious! Well, until iOS 7 happened which sadly spread like a virus to all other mobile OSs and even Windows/Linux.
5. BlackBerry Curve 8520. My attempt to protest against Apple. Failure. Thing was without any real apps, BlackBerry World (app store) sucked, it was slow, and needed hard reboots too often, which could take up to a HALF HOUR to finish if you had enough data on it. I could see their death coming even though the die-hards on CrackBerry.com refused to accept it (wonder where they are now?)
6. Various Android phones most running 2.3. I loved Gingerbread, and it remains my favorite Android version even today. No Play Services crap, and a truly AOSP experience for geeks and smart people, not dumbed down. Hated the hardware though--you can't get a good Android experience with only 256MB of RAM. Sadly, many phones that ran 2.3 were severely gimped this way and with internal storage, making the act of installing even one third-party app an 'interesting' endeavor. The SII I got in late 2020 was excellent though, until the carriers became dicks and ended 3G.
7. My favorite Android phone of all time and ironically the most hated model ever made, the HTC Thunderbolt. I never experienced HTC Sense 3.x because by the time I got a smartphone I was an Apple fan and when Android became more common for me, the stupid M8 with its flat UI mess called BlinkFeed was the mainstay. I seem to love what everyone else hates. The Thunderbolt was a great phone. It never seemed all that slow, and the battery made it through a day of work no issue. But I got it late, in 2020 until mid-2022, where Verizon cut off support, following the same stupid unethical crap AT&T did to my SII.
8. Samsung Galaxys. SII through the S5. I was using an S5 I've had since 2016 until this weekend where the phone went thermal runaway and the battery turned into a beyblade, aka spicy pillow. The phone no longer read SD cards and was reporting 2% free storage and it was dropping and apps were constantly crashing so I figured the writing was finally on the wall for the poor thing. Now running a
9. Galaxy A03S. I had an A13 5G that I intended to replace the S5 with that had a very well-done by me HTC Thunderbolt theme, but sadly for some reason, despite the phone being unlocked, soon as I stuck my SIM into it (even confirming with Verizon that the IMEI is clean and compatible) the notification came up saying "Invalid SIM Card: Network Locked SIM card Inserted" which I have NEVER seen before. The A03S was the closest compatible phone and despite the day it took to sort of recreate my Thunderbolt theme (not nearly as well done either) it works fine. I don't do much with smartphones today, only texting, calling and playing music, so I didn't install much other than the Android 2.3 music player, themed the texting app (Samsung Messages) to resemble the look I had on my S5 (pretty much nature wallpaper with 3D chat bubbles) and set the icons to a skeuomorphic icon pack and used the wallpaper from the HTC, but it's working.
