I recently ported my mobile phone number from M1 to Singtel. This is after more than 10 years of contracts between me and M1. I loved M1 since it was everything I cared about at that time. A small company going up against big mighty (to me, arrogrant) Singtel then. I had to help David fight Goliath. It was in my rebellious anti-establishment age at that time. So I started my mobile life with M1 and had been with them ever since… Till September 2009.
All my handphones were previously bought with contract from M1. God knows how many times I changed phones by extending my M1 contract on and on. My first number is still my current number. In fact my first phone was not even bought from a M1 phone shop but collected from M1’s office (then) at PSA Building. Weird.
I thought I wanted to keep a history of my handphones in case I become senile soon :p. I cannot remember all the exact names of the phones so I had to google around and look at the pictures and try to guess and try to recall. Growing old.
My very first handphone that I bought from M1 with a contract: The infamous Banana Phone Nokia 8110. I very ya ya when I have this phone. Go everywhere must bring it out and showed off. Kid. Childish 🙂
Then it was a Samsung. Not sure why I moved to Samsung but I think it was because I was very impressed by its voice activated dialing capability. Not kidding, it was able to make calls for me when I speak (loudly) the person’s name. Never mind that sometimes it called my mum instead of my girlfriend. Luckily, I never say the wrong thing. What a big technological impression it made on me many years ago 🙂
Then it was back to Nokia. This time it is a Nokia 8210. This was a very popular phone at its time. Very hugely popular. I believed in the deep drawers or dark storerooms of every home in Singapore, this phone is still there in a corner, reflecting on its glory days. It was born to do SMS. I also loved changing its covers. I remembered using it with covers of blue, red and then white.
My next phone was damn cool. Way cool (then). It was so cool because when I went clubbing, I could bring it out and showed the whole world I own this damn hot phone. Cause this (expensive at that time) phone actually used a VERY BLUE screen and it glowed damn brightly in the dark clubs. So in discos, I was (hoping to be) able to grab lots of female attention especially I loved to be dancing at the top of the bar seats at the disco area of Madam Wong (anyone remember M Wong ? My generation’s hottest place). Of course, it was useless as it never helped me to attract any girls. A phone (no matter how cool at that time) cannot mask my ugly looks :p
Next phone is more normal. If I remembered correctly, it is this one. Think so.
I said bye to Nokia (forever?) and moved to a Motorola next. Cannot remembered for the world why I did that. It was a terrible transition from Nokia friendly screen to this Motorola one. Never mind. Growing up pains. Terrible decision.
I then moved to the world of Windows Mobile phone. On my mobile. Not contended with SMS and voice calls, I decided to be a good corporate citizen and to check my corporate emails more often. Even in the dead of a night. So I had to buy a Windows PDA phone. Blackberry is something I never heard of then and iPhone is still somewhere stuck in the minds of Steve Jobs. My first Windows power phone ? A Dopod 595. Dun laugh. I like it. It is small and yet can check emails easily. It is good for SMS too. Forget about surfing the web that you can do together and dun ask me about apps. But I actually loved it. In fact, when it died, I shopped around 2nd hand shops looking for a Dopod 595 !
Moving to a HTC Diamond seemed like a logical move. At first it is not too good in terms of performance but once the latest firmware was released and installed, it turned out to be a very reliable Windows phone. I love it. It worked well, it retrieves my corporate emails well (I never used it for my private emails). It has an excellent calendar and I never forgot an appointment or meeting ever after. It also had a beautiful contact screen. I used mobile surfing (it was running Opera Mobile) a few times to check Singapore share prices. That’s it.
I sold it 2 months ago and moved to…. Singtel and Apple iPhone 3GS.
It was a moment of sadness for me when I signed the number portability form from M1 to Singtel. I love M1 and had been with them for so long that I felt like a traitor leaving them for Singtel. I felt guilty, miserable, sad, pathetic and outright disgusted at myself. But they don’t have iPhone for sale so that’s not my fault (just like Starhub has no English Premier League soon…).
They also did not really spend a great effort to keep me as a customer. I expected some greater effort (like a FREE phone ? :p) for someone who has been faithfully fighting the RED side with them for 10 years. Someone once told me that’s the style in Singapore. Welcome new people (new PRs) better than current people (Singapore citizens)… oh well..
In any case, I moved to Singtel and got an Apple iPhone 3GS:
Threaded SMS is great. Emails checking is now FANTASTIC (I, for the first time in my life, finally checked corporate email, personal hotmail, Gmail etc all in one phone). Calendar is okie. Contacts is not too bad. Mobile surfing is excellent (I used it very often) and of course the APPS rock. The Apple Application Store ROCKS to death. I don’t know if I will ever go back to Nokia, or Windows phone ? I loved my current phone too much. Way too much.
So much that I can kiss the shoes of Steve Jobs (not so much for Apple iPhone lah but also that its Apple share price keep going up every night as it moved towards USD 200, USD 250 and then finally I hoped USD 300 a share .. ha ha).
My history of mobile phones. What’s yours ? 🙂
