Evolution Of Mobile Phones

  Originally written in 2013, updated in 2020

If you walk around anywhere today you won't be out for five minutes until you see people walking along on their mobiles, ipads, sitting working on their laptops. It's a typical occurrence on any day or time of the week. So it seems strange to think that just a few decades ago people used landlines to communicate, wrote letters instead of emails and if you needed to find something out you went to the library to look at the encyclopedia. The days before emails, mobiles, ipads and google. It seems bizarre to think that the very early mobile phones were HUGE 

Above one of the earliest models of mobile phones. 

This was something I was thinking about alot yesterday. I was shopping with my mum as it was her upgrade day so we spent most of the day going around various phone shops. A day which is often tedious. With my mum it's usually hell. Usually every two years I spend several days a week in phone shops with her looking and playing with phones. She is undecisive at the best of times so imagine my surprise when she had decided and got her upgrade in just three hours. I spent last night helping her to setup her new phone a Samsung Galaxy S4, when I started to think back over all of the phones I've been through myself. There have certainly been a few, and admittedly I do still have them stored away in a drawer somewhere. So here is my history of mobile phones and why I liked them Have you had any of these? Who remembers these models? 

Phillips C12 BT Cellnet PAYG December 1999  

 

I got this phone, my first one for christmas in 1999. I remember it's tiny screen which was in green and black. The screen really was tiny, I remember writing a text was difficult for me and took ages. I remember I used to get one free number to call everytime I topped up. Of course at the time it was a cool phone. It had terrible uncustomisable ringtones and I had two leather look cases for it, One in blue and one in pink which I bought in Deptford market. 

Nokia 3310 ONE 2 ONE PAYG August 2001 

I'm sure most people reading this will not only remember them but remember owning one. I waited months to get this phone as it was THE phone to have then. I remember paying £99 for it on PAYG. I loved the bigger screen which made texting easier and it was the first phone I had which had predictive text. See how easilly pleased I was then? These phones were so reliable they never broke or went wrong. They only had basic phone capabilities such as sms and phonecalls. The best feature? Snake and space impact. Back then these phones were the bees knees because you could change the fascias (I had loads) then you could buy custom ringtones and logos from the little adverts in magazines. To this day I think this is the phone I kept the longest. 

Motorola V525 Vodafone Pay Monthly March 2004 

My first contract phone on Vodafone. My contract was £15 a month and I had 50 text messages and 50 minutes. Originally I had picked out a different phone to buy, this decision took me weeks. I finally decided to get a flip and eventually chose this phone. I loved it. I was so excited to finally have a phone with a camera, I remember the camera was 1.2 megapixels and it did take awful pics. Yet I loved it, I bought cute little cases for it and was always playing around with ringtones and wallpapers. I had this phone when MP3 ringtones became available. 
 

Samsung E530 Vodafone Upgrade September 2005 

To this day one of my favourite phones ever. I waited so long for my 18 month contract to expire so I could upgrade to this. It was a really tiny phone and came with a really cute pink case. It had a better camera and a video camera. This was the first phone I had which you could put janglies on, remember when we used to have cute little gems and me to you janglies hanging off our phones? Mine looked like a gypsy fortune teller. I used to have loads all on at the same time. I remember dropping this phone the first week I had it and caused a tiny scratch on the silver siding. What did I do? I covered over it with a silver gel pen, and it worked. This cute phone had a very addictive game called Bobby carrot pre loaded, a game which you can still get on some app stores. I really loved this little phone. It was so girly. 

Motorola Razr V3i Lilac/pink Vodafone pay monthly February 2007 

Another cute girly phone. around 2006/2007 everyone had a motorola Razr, there was the Razr, then the v3i model which I had. I loved the flatness of this phone and the colour was just perfect. The camera was rubbish and it didn't take too long to get bored of this phone. 

Nokia 7373 Vodafone PAYG September 2007 

I was only seven months into my contract when I got bored of my previous phone so I bought a PAYG phone on the same network and put my contract sim into it. I went through a few choices before settling on this one. I loved the unusual swivel design of this phone and the girly pattern. It also came with a matching pouch and janglies. I really liked this phone but soon encountered issues with it. I t went in for repair twice but I loved it so much I kept it until my next upgrade was due. 

Motorola Pebl U9 Vodafone Pay Monthly May 2008 

I had wanted this phone since it launched, it was different and a gorgeous colour. I couldn't have been happier when my upgrade came around. i loved being able to control the mp3 player from the outside screen and when you closed the flip you could choose from some lovely screensavers, My favourite was a goldsfish swimming around. The keypad soon became stiff and texting was quite difficult. I was also getting increasingly irritated by Vodafone as a network and their expensive tarrifs. 

Samsung G600 O2 PAYG February 2009 

The Samsung g600 was another phone everyone had or wanted. It was brilliant. You still even see a few around today. It was my first slider and my first experience with o2. There PAYG tarrif suited me perfectly. A few months later I paid up my vodafone contract and cancelled the contract. The following month I took out an O2 Simplicity sim only contract where I got much more then I ever got on vodafone. This phone was quite honestly the most reliable phone I've ever had. The 5 megapixel camera took brilliant photos, I loved the big ben wallpaper and if you got a text you got an airplane fly in the sky to alert you to it. The downside of this phone? you couldn't customise the text tones. 

LG GW300 O2 PAYG September 2009 

After taking out my new o2 simplicity sim I wanted a new phone. I'd loved the Blackberrys but unable to afford one I opted for this. I loved the look and design of it. Unfortunately it was a crap phone. The reception was abismal, the battery back cover kept popping off. It really wasn't worth keeping. A few days later I took it back and bought a different model 

LG GW520 O2 PAYG October 2009 

Not a bad phone, It was difficult to get hold of this. Initially I thought it was because it was popular, not because it hardly sold so the shops sent it back to the manufacturer. The slide out keypad was a nice touch but it didn't take long to realise that this was to be another crap model from LG. After this it put me right off LG models and I'll never have another one. 

Samsung s5560 O2 PAYG December 2009 

I'd heard some pretty bad things about the samsung tocco lite so decided to treat myself to this for christmas. I really liked the posh look of this phone. It was shiny, lightweight and smooth. Unfortunately just like the tocco lite the touch screen was unimpressive, you'd end up calling people by mistake, texting was a total disaster and those widgets that used to pop out on your screen with the slightest touch soon had me wanting to throw this phone out the window. 

Blackberry Curve 8520 Purple O2 Upgrade February 2010

I was so excited when I finally got this Blackberry. I upgraded from my o2 simplicity sim to a full 24 month contract and got my first Blackberry. I was smitten. It was a lovely colour, had great email options and i couldn't fault the camera. After a few months I had some issues with overheating and signal problems. The phone went in and out of o2 repairs centre and I went throught four replacement handsets before o2 offered me a different model. 

Blackberry Bold 9700 O2 Replacement July 2010 

I was inlove with this Blackberry, It was perfect, it was build alot better the the Curve. The mp3 player was fantastic, browsing the internet was really easy and texting and writing emails was really nice to do using the keypad. I kept this phone for just over a year when like the curve it started encountering a few problems. I went through a further five refurbished handsets before o2 again offered me a different model. 

Blackberry Torch 9800 O2 Replacement July 2011

Another lovely model from Blackberry. I liked being able to use a touchscreen and the keypad if you needed it. I really liked this handset, unfortunately the software wasn't ideal and was prone to freezing. o2 immediately changed it for another model. 

Blackberry Bold 9780 White July 2011

The best Blackberry I ever used. This model never let me down. I absoloutely loved it. It was very similar to the 9700 Bold but it worked so much better. I loved the white colour too as it was a really nice colour. I loved playing games, using twitter and facebook, the mp3 player. This was by far the best phone I have had to date. 

Apple iphone 4s O2 Upgrade January 2012 

When my next upgrade was due I had no idea what to go for. I spent days walking around the shops looking at all different models. I was never actually drawn to iphone at all. I had used one briefly earlier in the year and could not get on with it. It was only when my partner at the time decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to iphone I knew i had to follow. Not because I wanted to, but I knew he would have so many issues using it it would just be best if we both did it together. I remember we both upgraded in Carphone warehouse and they set it all up for us instore, we left with these new phones that we had no idea how to work. What did we do? We went to the apple store across the street, not to ask for help but to buy cases of course. 

Within a matter of weeks I was hooked and so started my love affair with Apple. 

 

Apple iphone 5 o2 Upgrade November 2013 

By the time my next upgrade came along it was clear I was going to stick with iphone. I decided to go for a refurbished model and get extra data and larger storage for the same price as the newer 5s models. Unfortunately getting a refurbished phone from o2 was not a good move as it didn't really work too well. 

 Apple iphone 5c Blue Replacement December 2013 

 o2 allowed me to switch to a different handset for no added extra price after the issues. I didn't particularly like the 5c model but thought I would give it a go and be different. I opted for the blue as it looked different to anything I had before. I admit it was quite fun changing it up a bit with the colour. In the end it was the slow performance of the 5c that made me itch for my next upgrade. 

 

Apple iphone 6 White o2 Upgrade August 2015 

Ok I will admit I did pay to upgrade a few months earlier but it was worth it as the slow performance and dodgy camera of the 5c made it seem quite a bad choice. It lasted well enough but I did want something faster. The 6 model was quite a bit bigger and really light. I loved the lightweitedness of it. It was great having a slightly bigger screen. Overall the 6 did perform really well and I did use it for just over a year. 

 Apple iphone 7 plus Bought outright November 2016 

A year into my latest upgrade and i received a nice little bonus. the iphone 7 plus had just launched and I thought I would treat myself. I remember the rose gold handset was so hard to get hold of. It was sold out absolutely everywhere. I eventually managed to get hold of one and i will be honest it was probably the best phone I ever had. I still have it and use it as my backup phone. I loved the big screen. The handset itself was bigger then I expected. The best thing about this phone was the camera, it was beyond amazing.

 

Apple iphone xr Yellow Bought outright 

After a good few years of use my trusty 7 plus started to feel it's age, it became slow and the battery was draining really fast. In a moment of madness I bought an android handset, and it was ok as far as android phones go but I missed too many of the iphone features. So off I went back to apple and decided to go bold and get the yellow xr. Another great little phone. A great size, great battery life that performed well. 

The only let down for me was the camera, after using the camera on the 7 plus this felt like a step backwards. If it had a better camera I would have stuck with it. 

 

Apple iphone 11 pro Silver April 2020 Vodafone Upgrade

My current phone. I am loving this phone. It is smaller then my previous two but I find it fits better in my pockets and handbags. The best part is most definitely the camera, it is the best camera I have had since the 7 plus. Just over a year in and the battery life is still good. My next upgrade is due next April but to be quite honest I don't think I will upgrade again. This phone does everything I need it to do, it has plenty of storage space (256GB) good reception, fantastic camera and it is still really fast. I won't be getting a new one until this one gives up the ghost.