A Legacy Living On: T-Mobile Sidekick Reborn As The Android-Powered Sidekick 4G

Call me a nerd, or call me nostalgic — but I loved the Sidekick series. Though that love fizzled over time (partially due to hardware issues in the later Sidekicks, partially due to the fact that smartphone prices plummeted while their user-friendliness skyrocketed), the first three Sidekicks are still some of my favorite devices ever.

Today, just two weeks after T-Mobile and Microsoft announced that they’re pulling the plug on the old Sidekick cloud servers, T-Mobile is officially unveiling something they (and I) hope can bring life back to the Sidekick series: the Android-powered, Samsung-made Sidekick 4G.

From pictures of the hardware, it looks like Samsung has kept most of the things that Sidekick fan know and love. The overall shape remains unchanged, and it still packs a roomy-lookin’ 5 row key (which I’m really, really hoping is on par with Sidekicks prior). Alas, there is at least a change or two that the more devout fans might not like: the handset’s signature (and oh-so-awesome) display spin-out has been replaced with something they’re calling a “pop-tilt” hinge (we’ve confirmed that this display slides, rather than spins), and the physical trackball has been replaced with an optical trackball.

Here’s what you need to know:

• 1 Ghz Samsung Hummingbird CPU
• 3.5 inch touchscreen display (First Sidekick with a touchscreen!)
• “Group Text” app (Seems to just be a “Reply All” type thing, rather than a managed Group Texting app a la Beluga or GroupMe)
• “Cloud Text” app (Which they say “provides the option to text with friends and groups across platforms, from wherever a customer is, whether from the comfort of their PC’s large screen and keyboard, or from their new Sidekick 4G”)
• “Sidekick Media Room” app provides access to Youtube, Slacker, T-Mobile TV, and any audio/video that might be on the handset
• Comes pre-loaded with Facebook and Twitter
• Dedicated Jump key for jumping between active applications (It’s not quite clear how this works, but it sounds like it’s more than what simply holding the Home key usually provides.

We’ll be checking this thing out at CTIA Orlando (March 21-23) in just a few days — check back in then for our hands on impressions! In the mean time: what do you think? Is this a worthy revival of the Sidekick line?

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G Boasting Group Text, 21Mbps HSPA+

T-Mobile and Samsung today announced the Sidekick 4G, a new generation of the Sidekick family that retains the Sidekick's defining characteristics while also breaking new ground. The Sidekick 4G keeps the familiar hardware design with pop-up 3.5-inch touch screen and five-row QWERTY keyboard, but it runs Android 2.2 Froyo with a number of customizations by Samsung and T-Mobile. First, the Sidekick 4G will have Group Text, a new T-Mobile service offering that lets Sidekick 4G users conduct reply-all group text conversations. Cloud Text, another new feature, will allow Sidekick 4G users to to conduct text conversations from their platform of choice (PC, phone, etc.). The new Jump key can be used for faster multitasking, and lets users jump from app to app quickly. The Sidekick 4G has a 1GHz A8 Hummingbird processor, and a user-facing VGA camera for video chats with the included Qik application. The Sidekick 4G is loaded with a bevy of entertainment features, including Samsung's Media Hub, T-Mobile's Media Room, and pre-installed Facebook, Twitter and social networking applications. The Sidekick 4G will have access to T-Mobile's HSPA+ network at 21Mbps. The Sidekick 4G will first be offered to existing T-Mobile customers later this spring.

Deutsche Telekom now thinking of merging T-Mobile USA with Sprint?

It ain't as crazy as you may think. If you'll recall, we actually heard last month that Deutsche Telekom was mulling the idea of spinning off T-Mobile USA from its portfolio, and now it looks as if one carrier in particular is interested. According to the inimitable "people with knowledge of the matter," Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting that Deutsche Telekom has gone ahead with talks to "sell its T-Mobile USA unit to Sprint in exchange for a major stake in the combined entity." Granted, there's no guarantees at this point that the two will actually reach a deal that sits well with both boards, and up until now, they haven't been able to come to terms with T-Mob's valuation. As the story goes, Deutsche Telekom has purportedly said that it could sell "all or part of the US business, and all options are open." Meanwhile, Sprint's remaining mum. A merger of these two would combine the number three and four players in America, but if that doesn't pan out, T-Mobile USA may end up buying wireless spectrum from Clearwire as an alternative. We're hearing that an outright sale of T-Mobile in the US is pretty much off of the table, but considering just how many backroom talks are apparently going on in both camps, we won't be surprised until they tell us to be.

T-Mobile's new data planning detailed, launching March 13th

As it turns out a 20 percent discount isn't all that's in the cards for T-Mobile webConnect subscribers. We now have what looks to be full details on the new data-only plans for laptops and other devices that, rather sadly, feature price increases across the board. T-Mo will be offering a monthly 200MB plan for $29.99, 5GB for $49.99, and a new 10GB choice for $79.99. That compares to $24.99 for the current 200MB plan and $39.99 for the current 5GB plan -- but don't forget those 20 percent discounts if you also have T-Mobile voice, which bring the cheapest plan down to a more tangible $23.99, 5GB to $39.99, and 10GB to $63.99. The last two are overage-free, but they're also throttling-enabled.

Nokia C7 with T-Mobile user's manual hitting FCC: is this the Tiger?

Rumors have been circulating the past few days that Nokia would be teaming up with T-Mobile to release the Symbian^3-powered C7 -- right on the heels of the Nuron 2's possible cancellation -- as the Tiger. Well, here's some fuel for the fire: a version of the C7 with AWS 3G support and mentions of T-Mobile in the attached user's manual just showed up in the FCC. Interestingly, there's absolutely no sign of T-Mobile branding on the phone itself, but it's possible Nokia's prototype here simply didn't have the final silkscreens applied. Of course, plenty of devices get FCC approval without ever seeing the light of day -- but it's a sign. Who's buying?

Is T-Mobile Going To Sell Optimus 2X As “G2x”?

It appears that T-Mobile may be bringing LG’s powerhouse Optimus 2X handset to the states as part of the “G” series of flagship Android devices. The G2x, as the Optimus 2X would be called, would join the G2 and LG G-Slate as part of the “Google experience” device line started by the G1.

No word on pricing or availability. We’ll keep an eye out, though.

J.D. Power: Verizon has best call quality nationwide, T-Mobile consistently belowing average

J.D. Power, that well known arbiter of human opinion in the United States, has just released its latest study on customer satisfaction with wireless carriers. It addresses such things as (the lack of) dropped calls, failures to connect, voice distortion, echoes, static, and late-arriving text messages, and ultimately churns out a rating out of five stars relative to the regional average and other carriers. In testing done between July and December last year, Verizon had the best or tied for the best satisfaction ratings in five of the six studied areas, while AT&T and Sprint traded blows for second and T-Mobile had to admit defeat as the laggard of the top four. US Cellular managed to score highest in the North Central region, but J.D. Power's overall assessment isn't very rosy for any of the carriers -- the stats collector says growing smartphone usage, heavy texting and more indoor calls are collectively causing call quality to stagnate, and even warns that "increased adoption of smartphones and wireless tablets may continue to compromise the quality of network service." 

T-Mobile offerring Sidekick owners half off Samsung phones or waived ETFs

Well, we knew T-Mobile was promising an "easy transition" for Sidekick owners once Danger's long-running cloud service was shut down later this spring, and we now finally have the details on exactly what that transition will entail. According to a letter sent to Sidekick owners and obtained by TmoNews, the carrier will be offering either fifty percent off "select" Samsung phones purchased on a new two-year contract, or a waived early termination fee between March 31st and May 31st for those that prefer to just pack up and go elsewhere. Hit up the source link below to read the complete letter if you haven't already received one yourself.

HTC Magic / T-Mobile G1 getting Honeycomb port, Android past and future fused together

The original gangster of Android, T-Mobile's G1, just refuses to quietly fade into the annals of history. Even in spite of its long overdue end of retail life last summer, the handset continues to see support from grassroots modders and tweakers, with the latest project being the most ambitious of them all: an Android Honeycomb port. A pair of xda members have succeeded in splicing Android's most senior hardware with its very latest software and the results are available to see on video after the break. As usual with these builds, half of the phone's functions have still to be enabled and the UI lag seems like it'll be a permanent feature whatever happens, but still -- it's Honeycomb on the G1!

Mobile Interactive Group Buying Golden Bytes To Extend Marketing Footprint

Another chapter in the continuing consolidation mobile service agencies, and the growth of one agency in particular, the Mobile Interactive Group. Today, the UK outfit announced that it would be buying Golden Bytes to extend its operations into the Netherlands and Belgium. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Up to now, MIG has been providing mobile marketing and mobile content services to a range of customer segments, from broadcasters like ITV (LSE: ITV) and Sky, to financial services (Barclaycard) and brands (Tropicana, Nokia), and even iPad apps for publishers (such as the tabloid the Sun, pictured). The majority of that business has originated in the UK, as well as the U.S. and Australia.

The acquisition of Golden Bytes, which has been around since 1999 and provides some of the same kinds of services as MIG does, will add coverage of the Netherlands and Belgium to MIG’s portfolio.

Golden Bytes’ customers up to now have included operators (eg, T-Mobile, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and KPN) as well as publishers and brands (eg, MTV, Rabobank and Shell).

Combining the two companies’ operations onto a single platform should also help reduce the costs of running those services.

The acquisition builds on another that MIG completed in June 2010,when it bought UK mobile marketing and CRM provider Piri Ltd., also for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition was made through existing funds. A spokesperson for MIG tells us that for the fiscal year to April 2010, MIG’s turnover was £77.8 million ($126 million), growth of 15 percent on the year fuelled by the rise in smartphone usage. The company also saw a 46 percent gross profit margin increase.

Meanwhile, Golden Bytes had revenue of €19.2 million ($26 million) for the year that ended 31 December 2010.

Orange, T-Mobile JV Now Losing Customers; France Tel Says 2011 Outlook Stable

When France Telecom’s Orange and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile merged forces to become Everything Everywhere in the UK, the promise was for scale and the cost benefits that come with that. The formula must be working for the companies—two weeks ago they announced they wouldextend the collaboration into other markets. But the brand looks like it has yet to resonate with customers in the UK, judging by today’s earnings results from France Telecom.

Overall, Everything Everywhere lost 191,000 customers in Q4 2010 compared to the same quarter a year ago. Within that figure, it gained 974,000 contract customers (which tend to be higher value and more loyal in the longer term), but lost over one million prepay customers in the process. It also lost 126,000 customers in its small broadband operation, bring the current total to 770,000 subscribers.

Smartphones are on the rise at the operator. They now account for 82 percent of all contract-based connections, a huge increase on the 50 percent figure for same quarter a year ago.

Everything Everywhere was the first operator to launch subsidised iPads in the UK, bundling a reduced-price tablet with two-year data subscriptions. The offer was launched just before the holiday shopping season, and the company expected huge take up, but this reportedly never materialized. The company did not reveal any sales figures in the current results.

Yet while the rest of France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) and the rest of the mobile world is seeing a boom in mobile data use, Everything Everywhere’s operation says that non-voice percent of ARPUs actually declined slightly, down 0.3 percent to 26.2 percent.

Overall, France Telecom’s revenues were up by about 1.5 percent to €45.5 billion ($62.7 billion). Net income was €4.9 billion ($6.7 billion) in 2010, an increase of 28 percent.

In its home market, France Telecom says that mobile data represented 31 percent of total mobile revenues in 2010, versus to 26.4 percent in 2009. That was partly driven by the huge boost in smartphone and dongle usage on the network. The number of 3G broadband customers was up by a massive 23.5 percent compared to 2009, to 9.4 billion.

It said that revenues in France were up by 0.8 percent for the year, with mobile services, data services and handset sales driving growth. But it also faced tough competition which resulted in lowered prices and reduced margins, down by 1.6 percent to 37.8 percent for the year (with a company-wide margin decline of 0.9 percent to 34.4 percent.) The company currently has a 36 percent share of the France’s broadband market and a 46.6 percent share of its mobile market.

But price competition doesn’t look like it will go away any time soon, so France Telecom is also trying to take a different approach by focussing on services over the network to boost revenues longer term. The company has been offering music bundles with Deezer, and plans to do the same with video bundles from Dailymotion—it took an $80 million, 49 percent stake in Dailymotion last month and also has a minority stake in Deezer.

Samsung Galaxy S 4G now is available from T-Mobile

Samsung's Galaxy S 4G might not have the very latest version of Android or too much hardware differentiation from the original T-Mobile Vibrant, but hey, it brings a front-facing camera and HSPA+ connectivity, so of course it costs $200. T-Mobile will have disappointed many with its clarification that the Galaxy S 4G will cost a pair of Benjamins on contract, exactly as much as its Samsung-built predecessor did seven months ago, and not as the carrier had originally indicated, $150. Also similar is the fact that T-Mo is launching this phone with an Android build that's one iteration behind the cutting edge, meaning the Froyo update headaches of last autumn may return in the form of Gingerbread jitters this spring. All the same, if the Magenta team sees fit to chop the Galaxy S 4G's price the same way it'sbeen doing with its other Android handsets, we could be in for a fine bargain in the near future. 

T-Mobile’s Limited Time Promotion Plan: 1500 Minutes + Unlimited Text/Data = $80

Lookin’ to hop on board with T-Mobile? Do you burn through data and texts like no ones business, but don’t really use your phone as a phone all that much? The stars have aligned for you, my friend — but only for a limited time.

They’re not saying how long this deal will stick around, but T-Mobile has just put up a new Limited Time promo plan. $80 gets you Unlimited Data, Unlimited Texts, and 1500 minutes. That’s $20 less than their Unlimited Everything plan, and $10 less than their non-promotional 1000 minute, Unlimited Data/Text plan.

T-Mobile bumping myTouch 4G, G2 prices to $250

It started as a leak on TmoNews earlier today, and T-Mobile's now made it official -- the carrier is bumping the prices of both the T-Mobile G2 and MyTouch 4G from $200 to $250 on a two-year contract (with no mail-in rebate). That, of course, follows the T-Mobile's little "mistake" last week with its pricing for the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, which was first listed at $150 before being changed to $200 a few days later. A number of other more inexpensive phones have also seen some minor prices changes -- hit up the link below for the complete rundown on those.

My So-Called Cellphone Show

The first laptop was a major life change for the nerds among us, but the first cellphone has become a milestone in life that nearly all of humanity can share. It seems like every year kids are getting phones at a younger age, racking up bigger SMS bills than ever, and generally just getting up to no good with this awesome, ubiquitous technology. Follow after the break as Engadget editors step into the mental Wayback Machine and walk through those happy, simpler times when getting their very first cellphone was greatest thing ever. Then hit up the comments and regale us with your own story. And yes, we do want to know your Snake high score. 

Tim Stevens: Motorola MicroTAC DPC-550, Cellular One

Bought in 1995 for some amount of money at Cellular One. Specs included a retractable antenna, seven-character LED display, buttons that glow and beep when you push them.
This one goes back a ways, to a time when I was still in high school and my mother was a customer service rep for Cellular One. As such she got access to some hot (at the time) cellular technology and was kind enough to let her fledgling geek of a son use it and, gasp, even bring it to school. Despite being in a class of about 400 kids I was the only student with a phone. In fact, none of the faculty even owned them at that point. These days teachers ban kids from taking phones into classrooms, but back then my classmates passed it around the room because it was such a novelty. One girl tried dialing Jenny at 867-5309 in the middle of physics class. No answer. 

Enough of reliving former glory, on to the device itself. Really all that you need to know about the 550 is that it was a phone. Just a phone. Games? E-mail? Texting? Address book? Get outta here. With a seven-character LED display you couldn't even call long-distance without the area code getting bumped off to the left. People complain today about the iPhone 4 signal bars dropping. This thing didn't even have signal bars, just a little red "NoSvc" light that popped on should you happen to stumble out of a metropolitan area -- or forget to raise that antenna.

As just a phone it worked well enough. I still remember the squishy, glowing keypad and the unfortunately small red send button in the lower-right, so tiny Motorola couldn't afford a vowel. Thus it was the SND button, kitty-corner from the PWR button. This was the phone that got me through high school -- at least I think it was. My memory isn't quite what it used to be. For college I was given a Sanyo SCP-4000, a model light-years beyond the Moto. It had a D-pad, an LCD screen, and not a even hint of coverage anywhere on campus. Those were the days.

Joshua Topolsky: Nokia 21X0, Sprint PCS (or AT&T)

Purchased sometime in 1995. Specs included a grayscale screen, protruding antenna, and possibly Snake.
The year was 1995. I had just gotten my driver's license -- late to the game at the age of 18 -- and the roughest looking Volkswagen that $1000 could buy (a navy blue, 1985 Golf for those playing along at home). I'd also just discovered techno music, raves, moved out of my parent's house, and the VW was prone to breakdowns. Naturally my already-nervous mother and father feared the worst. I had a pager (as was the rage back in the heady, embarrassing days of the 90's), but that didn't seem to sufficiently allay my folks' fears. 

The solution? Force me to get to the nearest big box retailer and sign up for a cellphone contract, lest I be stranded on a desolate highway while traveling to or from an illegal warehouse party. In Pittsburgh -- my hometown -- there were really only two options for electronics (outside of the smaller mom and pop shops): Sun or Silo. This was well before the dawn of Circuit City and Best Buy, and abstract concepts like choosing a carrier (or even knowing what a carrier was) were not in play. Silo was a little more high-falutin' than Sun which meant the choice was simple.

So, off I went to pick out the finest cellular communications device money could buy. Actually, what did I know? Nothing really -- I was amazed that I would own a phone that you could use outside of your house. Today, I can't remember a lot of the details, but I'm nearly certain I walked out of the store with a Nokia 2120 (or at least some version of the 21X0 -- the company made duplicates on all kinds of carriers for years), with a calling plan of something ludicrous like 50 minutes a month.

The idea was that it would only be for emergencies -- and if the emergency was calling my friends to see if they wanted to have lunch and hit a record store, I had a lot of emergencies. The truth is, I was already addicted to constant connectivity and owning a phone I could use nearly anywhere just fed my growing problem. Without that phone, my early rave years would have never been the same, and who knows... I might never have found Engadget either.

Chris Ziegler: Motorola Lifestyle, Ameritech

Bought somewhere around 1996 from a Circuit City Express (yes, Express) in suburban Detroit, Michigan. AMPS radio, 8-character LED display, classic and perfectly tasteful forest green shell.

Just check out the gallery below -- look at all those fun-lovingSaved By The Bell-generation young people enjoying life! Of course, what those wholesome teens and twentysomethingsaren't telling you is that they can't afford the service on their brightly-colored Motorola Lifestyles without significant underwriting from their parental units.

I'll be honest, I can't remember what the terms of my Lifestyle's service plan were, but I very specifically recall being warned not to use it unless I was being chased by the Russian mafia, lost in a war zone, or caught up in some other dire circumstance that would inevitably lead to my untimely death if I didn't send out a distress signal. If memory serves me correctly, my parents were reluctant to let me have it from the get-go, and consented only with the understanding that I'd have no monthly minute allowance and would pay some per-minute rate tantamount to extortion for the privilege of bombarding my skull with some hilariously high level of radiation that would undoubtedly be banned by modern standards.

Of course, considering the Lifestyle's meager feature set, I wasn't missing much. The handset had a one-line dot matrix LED display; I remember that many competing phones from other manufacturers at the time had really cheap-looking backlit monochrome segmented LCDs, so I really thought I was the big man on campus. After all, my phone (which, again, I wasn't allowed to use) could show numbers andletters! It also had a 99-number contact directory, which was great for storing the names of all my friends that I didn't have the money to call.

What made the Lifestyle interesting was that it was among the first phones -- in fact, the first that I can think of -- that put any serious effort into making a cellphone a lifestyle accessory (hence the name, I suppose) by offering it in a variety of bright colors and patterns. Nokia would go on to really popularize the concept with the Xpress-on series of devices and exchangeable faceplates, but it was the little ol' Lifestyle that introduced it to me at a time when the pure-business MicroTAC series was considered the gold standard in cellphone design. I opted for a lovely shade of forest green, which frankly may have been the only one that Circuit City had for sale at the time.

Though I frequently powered it on to enjoy the techno glow of its LEDs, I think I maybe ended up using the Lifestyle once or twice in the entire time I had it -- always for a call to my parents, of course. I ended up moving on to a Sony Zuma Z100 with Sprint PCS around the time I went off to college, an awesome phone whose oddball form factor has yet to be duplicated to this day. Shame, really.

Thanks to Motorola for digging the Lifestyle brochure out of its archives!

Motorola Lifestyle Series brochure

Thomas Ricker: Nokia 6110, Vodafone UK

Given to me by my employer in mid 1997 under a corporate account. It featured an Infra-red port and was the first Nokia phone to ship with Snake.
As cellphones were becoming popular in the US in the late 90s, I was living in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco -- an oddball mix of homeless hipsters holding ironic signs of homage to the poor-is-cool notion, aging hippies unable to move on, and art-school brat-pack wannabes more concerned with mixology than gadgets. For all their eccentricities, each of these groups had one thing in common: technology was the enemy, a weapon to be wielded by Ayn Rand herself at the end of days. As such, the only people who had cellphones were rich trust funders who could afford one for personal use, or corporate suits who begged their management for this ultimate symbol of upward mobility. I was neither.

That changed when I left the US for London (and a more mature perspective) back in 1997. As a new hire of a young startup, the first device given to me wasn't a laptop, but a cellphone. A Nokia 6110. A phone based on the consumer-oriented 5110 but with a more advanced user interface. A device that made US cellphones appear clumsy and brickish by comparison with its beautiful iridescent finish and icon-based UI that was intuitive even for a first time mobile (pronounced mo-Biyl) phone owner. Oh, and it had an infra-red port and Snake. It was glorious, I had arrived.

I was fired 3 months later when our startup was purchased by a larger competitor. I kept the 6110, later replacing it with the Ericsson T28s and the world's first Bluetooth headset, the £199.99 Ericsson HBH-10. 

Laura June - Nokia 6110 - VoiceStream Wireless

Bought somewhere in the space between 1997 and 1998, for who knows how much money, the Nokia 6110 had a max contact count of 50, and no camera, but it had Snake and made calls, and really, nothing else mattered. 

In late 1997 or early 1998, despite the fact that almost no one I knew had a cellphone, I decided to buy one, simply for the fact that, having bought my first car, I was afraid of being stranded somewhere alone on the side of the road. The only people I knew that had cellphones at the time were my younger brother (who also had an intense series of pagers), and my cousin, who also went to college with me, so she, I thought, could serve as my guide into this mysteriously uncool territory I was wandering into.

My first cellphone began my long love affair with Nokias, and though I was at pains to determine which model was actually the first one I had, I've nailed it down to the Nokia 6110, on VoiceStream Wireless. I have to admit, it was the commercials featuring Jamie Lee Curtis that ultimately decided what carrier I would go with. I went to a mall kiosk, set myself up with my new phone, and headed home. It wasn't snowing, but it was freezing cold and there was plenty of snow on the ground. After parking my car outside my apartment (also my first), I gathered together my various items -- purse, gloves, school books (one, I remember, was the 10 or 15-pound Riverside Shakespeare that I hauled around for years), and my brand new cellphone, and tore into my house.

When I got inside, I could hear someone leaving a message for me on my answering machine, and as I made my way from my carpeted living room into the linoleum floored kitchen, I wiped out because my feet were soaking wet from all the snow. Though I tried valiantly to keep my new gadget from flying out of my hands, I failed, and as I lay there, face down on the kitchen floor, embarrassed for myself, I saw it, in several (possibly just two) pieces. As I recall, I set those pieces on the table carefully, and just looked at them for a good half hour, not really having the courage to reassemble the phone. Sure, it looked like it would just snap back together (in fact, it was really just the rather giant battery pack that had flown off the back), but I was afraid that I would find, once reassembled, that the phone simply didn't work anymore. And then, there were the stories my brother had told me about how if there were signs that your phone had been wet, well, you'd never get a replacement from the carrier, and yes, my phone had had some telltale signs of snow on it when I picked it up -- don't ask me how that came to be. Anyway, I did snap it back together, and it did work just fine.

My fondest memories of the phone, of course, are the hours I spent mastering Snake. My most embarrassing memory of the phone? Well, the fact that I simply didn't understand the technology itself, or didn't think about it -- and kept my phone turned off unless I wanted to make a call -- for the first few months that I had it. In retrospect, it sounds silly, but then again, nobody ever called the darn thing back then anyway, and when it did ring, it was inevitably at the bottom of my giant purse, and scared me half to death, so foreign was the sound of its ring to me. Of course, I quickly got over my incessant, near obsessive need to conserve battery power, and these days, roughly 8 Nokias, 1 BlackJack, 1 BlackBerry and 3 iPhones later, you'll find me, like the cool kids, with my cellphone always on. The sound of the ring however, still scares me to death because you know, nobody calls.

Ross Miller: Nokia 5120, BellSouth Mobility

Bought in 1999, probably free on contract. Specs included a 47 x 84 black and white screen and the game Snake.. what else really matters?

Back in 8th grade, I was busy doing things I figured most kids my age were supposed to do -- namely, work. I was giving guitar and bass lessons to 6th graders and making a business out of it. To be honest, I really can't recall a time since then where I haven't been working, with the exception of maybe a couple months here or there, but I digress. It was at that point where my parents decided it'd be best if I got my own cellphone, instead of just constantly stealing my dad's nondescript Nokia flip for when I wanted to catch a movie or hang out at Wendy's (hey now, don't judge). And make no mistake, we were a Nokia family; if you can believe it's possible to have company loyalty at a time consumer cellular devices were in such a state of infancy, well, In Espoo We Trusted. So that was that.

The carrier was BellSouth Mobility, which would later become Cingular, which would later become AT&T. And being from Atlanta, we always kept with the company regardless of its name and / or ownership. Of course, reception never really sucked when you live in the backyard of the carrier's headquarters. Now, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, dear reader. I loathed writing this contribution. Not because it isn't interesting and not because I didn't wantto write it, but frankly because I couldn't for the life of me remember what model I had. And it's been killing me... but I've now given up, and my best guess, based on gut reaction to image search and some matching details (candybar, screw-on antenna, Snake) is the ultra-successful Nokia 5110 or some variant thereof, maybe the 5120. Or the 5125. Or the 5160. Or the 5165. Whatever.

I guess I could've made phone calls or sent text messages, but to me, it just some device for playing Snake all day long. It's the sole reason I kept with Nokia, and I'd later pick my next phone based on having the original Snake (Bonus: that second phone had an awesome ringtone composer I used to recreate the main riff of Blur's "Music is My Radar.") Say what you will about Nokia, but you know what? Those candybars never had bad reception and would run for days without a charge. I haven't been able to say that about another phone since.

Nilay Patel: Sony D-Wave Zuma CM-Z200, Ameritech

Bought in 1999 / 2000 for an unknown amount of money on a 2-year Ameritech contract. Specs included an 800MHz CDMA radio, a four-line monochrome display, a texting function that wasn't properly supported by the network, a 99-entry address book, and -- most importantly -- a flip-out microphone.

How cool was my Sony D-Wave Zuma CM-Z200? I passed up my mother's hand-me-down StarTAC to grab the Zuma, and that was serious business at the tail end of 1999. Sprint carried the black CM-Z100 at the time, but I signed with Ameritech to get the silver Z200 -- presaging a lifetime of being kicked in the ass by carrier exclusivity. But oh man -- the Zuma was so hot, I didn't care. The software underneath was the same Qualcomm CMDA platform everyone else got, but the hardware itself was a classic piece of insane Sony engineering, built before the Ericsson linkup and the shift to "fashion" phones. Remember when Sony put Jog Dials on everything? The Zuma's Jog Dial combined with the flip-out microphone, so you could pull off a maneuver my friend Kyle dubbed "the scroll and flip" when you wanted to make a call. You could also answer and end calls by flipping the mic -- heaven.

Sadly, It wasn't the incessant flipping of the fragile mic stalk that ended my time with the Zuma, nor even Ameritech's eventual merger into SBC and then Cingular and AT&T and GSM over CDMA with it. Nope, it was something much, much dumber -- the external antenna. It was a pull-out piece, the last of the old school, and the base was just one unreinforced chunk of weak plastic. I snapped at least four of 'em over the course of my time with the Zuma, each time furtively trying to superglue things back together before sadly heading back to the store for a replacement. Eventually the hassle of having to return to Wisconsin from college in Chicago to find an Ameritech store became too much, and I abandoned the Zuma for a Sony Ericsson T616i on AT&T. It was a great phone, that T616i -- I was well on my path to Sony Ericsson fanboydom. But nothing has even quite been as sweet as that silver Zuma. I keep trying to find one on eBay -- I'll even take the lame black Sprint version -- but they seem to have been memory-wiped from existence, and Sony couldn't even help us find a high-quality press photo. But I'll never forget you, Zuma. In my heart, we're still scrolling and flipping forever.

Joanna Stern: Nokia 3390, Cingular

Bought in 2000 for some amount of money at Cingular. Specs included GSM900/1800, 84 x 48 monochrome display, vibrate and predictive text input. Nope, no camera or speakerphone here. 
I wish the story of my first cellphone was more exciting, but like many of my talented colleagues, my mobile journey began with a Nokia handset. As I remember it, I was in tenth grade and I convinced my parents that I needed my very own cell -- to, you know, call them if I was getting out of school early or forgot my cheese sandwich at home. Up until then I had always taken the family Nokia 5190 when I needed to be "in touch," but for whatever reason my dad agreed to buy me a phone to call my own. So, I set my eyes on Nokia's more petite 3390, and I was forever changed. Okay, that's a bit dramatic, considering I used the phone like any teenage girl -- to get in touch with my girlfriends at the mall and wait for the older cute boy to call. Yes, I was that cliche -- I can actually still remember getting excited when I'd see his name pop-up on the monochrome screen. I'm fairly certain somewhere in between all those calls there were some major fights with my father regarding going over my monthly minutes, but I believe I paid them off by picking up some added household chores and babysitting jobs. I actually think he thought the phone was a total waste of money until he called me on it on September 11, 2001 to let me know what had happened to the Twin Towers and that he'd be picking me up from school immediately. 

Yes, Nokia lived up to its "connecting people" marketing slogan, but it also connected me to a monochrome line that inched across the screen. I, too, was a Snake addict, and I seriously couldn't get enough of the game. Actually, the 3390 was one of the first phones to come with Snake II. So while everyone else was controlling the old, stick-like digital image, my snake had a small animated mouth! I actually tried to replace the keypad at some point because the 2, 4, 6, 8 keys were so worn. Sadly, I can't remember my high score -- it disappeared when I gave up the phone in 2002 for the much cooler looking Motorola V60i flip phone. I guess I thought I was done with the high school games and ready for a fresh college look. 

Richard Lai: Panasonic G-520, unlocked

Procured in 2001 or 2002 while rummaging through the shelves at home -- was probably a raffle prize that my father won at a company banquet (I never dared to ask). Specs included GSM 900, low-res monochrome LCD, 650mAh battery, and polyphonic ringtones!

I was only 13, and at the time, parents were only starting to equip their kids with cellphones. Even after my supposedly lucky find in my Hong Kong apartment, it was only my cautious self that brought the G-520 back to my British boarding school as a "just in case" measure -- I would've happily avoided this hideous phone had there been other options. For instance, back then many of my schoolmates were carrying a Nokia 3310 (not far off from Joanna's phone above), which sported a built-in antenna and the legendary Snake game; my G-520 had neither. Oh, and it didn't have an infrared port, so I could only -- with much jealousy -- observe others beaming virtual cards across their trendy handsets.

With the little usage I had on my G-520, I struggle to recall what other features the phone might have had (Google isn't helping much, either) -- all I know is that back then I lacked the technical brain power (and potentially phone credit) to set up WAP, plus the weak signal in the English countryside meant pigeon mail would've been more reliable than SMS. Consequently, most of the time the phone was left inside a dedicated compartment in my school bag, yet the paintwork around the corners still managed to slowly fade away. Needless to say, the arrival of my second-ever phone -- a Sony Ericsson T630 -- the following year was a great relief.

Vlad Savov: Nokia 6510, T-Mobile UK

Obtained in 2002 via my mother's free contract upgrade (yeah, that's how I roll). Specs included GSM 900/1800, 60 x 96 5-line monochromatic panel, FM radio, vibration alert, and yes, Snake II.

It's impossible for me to reminisce about this phone with anything but the happiest of feelings. Just look at those sharp, aggressive lines -- that's molded plastic at its absolute best! One of the biggest adaptations for me, having spent a lot of time hijacking a family-owned 5110, was to the switcheroo Nokia pulled with the arrow keys coming to the middle and shifting the OK key out to the side. A second upheaval was the fact that Snake II was a pale shadow of its predecessor, which I still consider the best damn mobile game ever made. Perhaps the Snake to Snake II transition was a sign of the N-Gaging things to come.

Trifling flaws aside, the 6510 continues to represent the ideal pure phone for me. It withstood scrapes and drops like a champion, had the endurance of a marathon runner, and its reliability was unquestionable. Which is something you can say about a lot of Nokia phones from that era.

Ultimately, my experience mirrors Darren's below. In a world where calls were priced by the minute and my student budget allowed for few luxuries, my trusty Nokia was mostly used as a texting device, receiving the occasional call now and again. It did make meeting my girlfriend a whole lot less complicated an affair, but my life never did manage to turn into the happy, sunny people on Nokia's ads. For shame.

Sean Hollister: Kyocera QCP-6035, Sprint PCS

Bought in 2002 for an incredible rebate-packed discount of the long-forgotten kind at CompUSA. Discovered only afterwards that the phone was locked to Sprint. Specs included a 16MHz processor, 8MB of memory, CDMA 850 / 1900... and a Palm Pilot!
Eight years ago, I was more concerned with whether my parents could track me down than the ability to make calls, so I was among the last of my high school friends to carry a cellphone. But when I did finally embrace my mobile calling, I like to think I did it well, with Kyocera's QCP-6035 - a genuine smartphone at a time when the BlackBerry was a pager that did email. Mind you, back then the definition of a smartphone didn't require app stores or Google Maps, and the QCP-6035 didn't have anything remotely resembling a camera, much less a front-facing one. It was simply a flip phone that turned into a tiny greyscale Palm Pilot when you opened its door, and the then-ingenious ability to dial contacts directly from the Palm's address book.

Months before the Treo popularized integrated connectivity (and added a QWERTY keyboard on top) I was kicking butt and taking names at 10WPM using Graffiti shorthand on the 160 x 160 resistive touchscreen -- or occasionally, beaming them over the infrared data port. I'll admit I never paid Sprint extra to use the primitive web browser, nor got the chance to tether my laptop at 14.4 Kbps dialup speeds -- another mildly amazing feature at the time -- but I did go to school every day with freshly cached Slashdot articles to read at lunch thanks to AvantGo, played loads of Bejeweled, Space Trader and Zap!2000 and every once in a blue moon, made a fairly clear CDMA PCS telephone call. By today's standards, the Kyocera Smartphone is a cheap, flimsy brick at which even today's cheapest featurephones would thumb their nose, but I loved my QCP-6035's handy jog dial, retractable antenna and literally-split personality... until the day I got my Danger Hiptop in 2004.

Darren Murph: Motorola 120T, U.S. Cellular

Bought in 2002 for $100 on contract. Specs included TDMA, 2-way SMS, voice dialing, 5.5 hours of talk time, WAP 1.1 internet, and a black and white 96 x 64 resolution display.

Dare I say it, but I was one of the last Americans to actually have a driver licensebefore a cellphone. Bizarre, right? Of course, I was also one of the first in my grade to procure said license, but I digress. Motorola's 120t was the first cellie I was able to call my own, and while I had toted my mother's mobile around on occasion (trendy, I know), there was just nothing quite like having a 10-digit string of numbers to call my own.

Truth be told, I never really used my first cellphone all that much. Minutes were pricey back in those days, and I mostly used it just to phone home or dial up my ladyfriend (who I've since married, I'll have you know). Texting was a foreign topic, and I never sent nor received a single SMS on the 120t. Shock and horror aside, my first cellphone definitely made an impact on my life. It was the first occasion where I could actually call ahead and ensure plans were still on track, and it gave me the golden opportunity to ring my mum on the road and let her know I'd be a little late and to not worry. These sound like such small things now, but coming from a mobile-less world, the little things actually amounted to a lot. 

In many ways, it wasn't the 120T that changed my life -- it was that blasted Snake game on my girlfriend's Nokia. But it's safe to say this gem sparked my desire to never roam without a cellphone, and for that, I'm eternally grateful. And indebted to a carrier.

Paul Miller: Sony Ericsson T616, Cingular

Bought in 2003 for about $100 on contract. Specs included GSM / 128 x 160 16-bit color LCD, 2MB Memory, 319 x 288 camera, custom themes, and a ringtone composer.

Having already bared my soul on Growing Up Geek, I guess I can't be too embarrassed... alright, so I was hanging out at Best Buy this one day, bugging the cellphone rep. (A general impression of my activity can be obtained from Ross Rubin's classic poem: "The Maven"). Some customer came up and was looking at the options, and I kept interrupting to the Best Buy rep with my own opinion, particularly with my high concept thoughts on Bluetooth. See, I thought Bluetooth was going to change everything. I imagined a Foursquare-style service, where you could see who else was at a party or a bar, then swap music, interests, or phone numbers with them without having to, you know, converse. All over the magic of Bluetooth.

The only decent phone that had Bluetooth on this Best Buy rack was the Sony Ericsson T616, so I was pushing it hard on this hapless would-be customer, and eventually the Best Buy rep got fed up with me: "Why don't you buy the T616, if you love it so much?" So I did. I didn't have a Bluetooth Mac at the time, so I couldn't use the excellent Salling Clicker software, and while I bought a Bluetooth headset early on, I lost it quickly enough to make me wary of splurging on another. So I just used the phone like a phone and I loved it. It was simple enough to be usable for a first timer like me, but fancy enough to let me feel superior over my friends with their ultra simplistic Nokias and Motorolas.

I still hardly use Bluetooth for anything but my computer's Bluetooth keyboard, but the I feel like the dream is more or less alive and well in some vague amalgamation of Zune, Foursquare, Facebook, and this strange new art I'm learning of actually talking to people at parties.

Myriam Joire: Sony CM-B1207-CNT0, Clearnet

Bought in 1998 for some amount of money on Clearnet (now Telus) in Canada. Specs included dual-mode CDMA / AMPS radio, SMS, vibration, lithium-ion battery, four-line monochrome LCD, retractable antenna, and -- the killer feature -- a jog dial.

It was the fall of 1998, and I was a year into my career as a video game developer, finally making enough money to really start paying off my student loans and buying some toys. Clearnet was just rolling out its brand new PCS / CDMA network in Vancouver (Canada) with affordable phones and plans, and I was hoping to ditch my landline for some mobility. It was the perfect storm, and I was right in the middle of it.

The Sony CM-B1207-CNT0 -- a mouthful, I know -- was Cleanet's first and most affordable phone, and boasted some impressive features for the time. The jog dial was the star of the show, letting me navigate menus and scroll through the address book like a pro. Most of the time I was using Clearnet's CDMA digital network, but the phone supported roaming on Bell and Rogers / Cantel's AMPS analog network, which happened often, but was free.

I once made a 30-minute call to my mom in France on new-years eve from a basement party with only poor AMPS reception, and not only did the international long-distance call cost me a fortune, but the phone did something crazy: it roasted the skin on my ear, presumably from the combination of low signal, high RF power, and my many ear piercings. Clearly, I've been a mutant and phone addict ever since.

Eventually, Clearnet was absorbed by Telus, and I upgraded to a Nokia 6188 which was similar, but smaller, thinner, lighter, and way more Finnish. Snake anyone? After moving to San Francisco in 2002 and loathing a brief stint with a Sanyo SCP-6000 on Sprint, I purchased a Sony Ericsson T68i (unlocked) and ported my number to T-Mobile. I've enjoyed SIM freedom ever since and I've never looked back.