I have seen posts on different forums and other places where people recount their history with mobile phones. I decided to take that journey today and found it difficult to find some of the more obscure phones that I owned. I have found model numbers and pictures for every phone I have owned.

1998-1999 – Motorola M3288 – Aerial/Voicestream

This was a tough one to find. If you search for “aerial” and “phone” together with anything else, you get a lot of hits for antennas. Not very helpful. Luckilly, I found Golden Phones that claims to have the largest directory of phones. I got this phone when I was a senior in High School. I can’t remember if I got it before or after Christmas. I talked my parents into getting it because Aerial had no contract, and it had the cheapest phone plan at $19.99 a month for 100 minutes, or something ridiculous like that. Also, I told them I would use it for safety, and I could take it to college. I remember going to youth group and forgetting my phone once. There was a horrible accident involving a wrong-way driver just before my exit in Rochester, and my mom couldn’t get a hold of my sister and me, so she was a bit worried.

1999-2000 – Nokia 5100 – Aerial/Voicestream

I purchased the 5100 series Nokia phone sometime during my freshman year of college. I remember using one of my roommate’s discount at Office Max or Depot or one of those places. Again, another plus of Aerial was that you could buy a phone anytime, because you had no contract. Of course, that made the phones relatively expensive compared to other companies because there was no on-contract pricing. This phone was great. There are some great memes right now about how strong this phone and others like it were. You could throw this thing against your house and the house would break, not the phone. Whereas, new phones, like the iPhone, break apart just by looking at them. This was the first phone I had with SMS…back when it was free.

2000-2001 – Ericsson R280LX – AT&T

This was the first phone I had with “Internet” on it. I wouldn’t really call it that. It had news in text form, that was it. You could also make ringtones on the phone, something you couldn’t with other phones. One thing it didn’t have was SMS.

2001-2003 – LG TM510 – Verizon

This was another tough one to find. Reason being, it is before the common naming that all LG Verizon phones have now, with models starting with a VX. This was another workhorse. I loved this phone. It had analog mode, something my other phones didn’t. Problem was, Verizon’s digital network would go down sometimes, and I’d get stuck in analog overnight. Analog uses way more power than digital, kind of like 4G uses way more than 3G, so my phone would be dead in a matter of hours, instead of days (yeah, standby used to last that long back in the day).

2003-2004 – Nokia 3650 – T-Mobile

You can see I switched companies around a lot. That’s because you used to not be able to get a new phone with your current company without paying an arm and a leg. That changed about the time I got this phone. I got this phone because it had a camera, and was one of the most powerful phones of the time. It had some great features, and even removable memory (16MB SD). This phone was not as strong as the 5100 was. I remember about a year after I got it, if you touched it or set it down hard enough, it would knock the battery out of place, and would reset. T-Mobile replaced it under warranty. I still have this one somewhere.

2004-2005 – Motorola A630 – T-Mobile

The warranty replacement for my Nokia still couldn’t hack it. There were so many problems with the phone, I eventually went to buy another one. I was still on contract, but apparently T-Mobile now let their customers get a discounted phone after a certain amount of time. This was the first time I remember that. I was still more expensive than being a new customer, but it came with a bluetooth headset, and was one of the best they sold at the time. I picked this one because of the keyboard, and bluetooth. I had just started dating Sarah, so we texted and I talked to her with the headset, because I couldn’t get a good signal in my parent’s basement, where I was living at the time. I think this was the first phone I could use USB to my computer with to add ringtones. Since the Nokia had an SD card, I could just pull that out to add ringtones.

2005-2007 – LG VX8100 – Verizon

Right before we got married, I switched to Verizon so we could have a family plan. It was way cheaper than having two separate plans with separate companies. Another good phone. This one was the first one I had with what is now “3G” on it. I didn’t pay for it though, so it really just used my battery. I remember this as the first phone I tried to update myself…not a good idea. I bricked my phone. Luckily, this was before people were really doing stuff like that, so Verizon just replaced it. This one could also be connected with USB to a computer, and I could download ringtones to it using a great piece of software called BitPim. I could sync my contacts, pictures, and tons of other stuff. Eventually, this phone was given as a hand-me-down to Sarah’s brother Timothy. I believe this phone actually made it to Germany…

2007-2009 – Motorola KRZR K1M – Verizon

The original Motorola RAZR and family of phones (RIZR, KRZR) were great, slim phones. I wouldn’t really call this an “upgrade” from the VX8100 though, and I often wished I had kept that phone. Verizon decided to put the same BREW interface on ALL of their phones. It was ugly, and annoying. I guess it made for a similar user experience over different phones, but each phone had different features. The VX8100 had a tip calculator that I used all the time, while this one didn’t, even though the software looked the same. The battery was also an issue. I don’t remember having issues with other phone’s batteries, but this one was replaced twice.

2009 – BlackBerry Storm – Verizon

My first smartphone, if you could call it that. This was during BlackBerry’s huge takeoff. Verizon had a BOGO on BlackBerry’s. Sarah was due for an upgrade, so we went in. Unfortunately, we both needed to be eligible. I think I used one of her brother’s upgrades (Timothy’s while he was out of the country?). I loved this phone at first. The power I could wield from my hand was immense. This all changed when I realized what a mess this phone was. It took a few months, but eventually it just didn’t work the way it should anymore. Email was about all it was good for. And the Garmin app I bought for $80 was also pretty good. It pretty much stops there though.

2009-2011 – Motorola Droid – Verizon

Since I didn’t use my upgrade to buy the Storm, I was able to use it to buy the OG Droid. This was a great phone when it first came out, but was quickly eclipsed by other phones only a month or two after its arrival. Of course, now that I was on my own upgrade schedule, I had to abide by it, or pay ridiculous amounts of money to upgrade. I loved the phone for the first year, but by the second, I was already looking for my next one. It really wasn’t good for anything except email. Even then, it wouldn’t work sometimes. Twitter? Forget about it. Facebook? If I could get it to load, it might work for a minute or two. It’s anemic RAM and processor were just no match for newer models. It was a great phone to hack. I still have it, and it still works on WiFi. What for, I’m not sure, yet.

2011-present – Motorola Droid RAZR – Verizon

Verizon really had a weak release schedule in 2011. There were really no contenders that came out in the first half of the year, followed by a ton of phones that replicated each other. I was really waiting for the Galaxy Nexus, but I couldn’t wait. When they set a release date for this phone (11.11.11), I pre-ordered it so I could pick it up on release day. It has the same specs as the GNex, plus removable storage. The battery is the first to be non-removable besides the iPhone. It has it’s moments, but I’ve got it set to my liking now. The battery can last all day, as long as I switch to WiFi or stay on 3G. If I use 4G, it will be dead by afternoon. 4G just sucks that much power. I’m please with my purchase, and it should be able to last me until July/August 2013 when I can buy whatever the latest and greatest phone is.