I recently rediscovered this picture of all my cell phones from 1998 to 2013. I took this group picture shortly before sending most of them to electronic waste disposal. At the beginning of that fifteen year period, these were "cell phones" to specify they worked on a wireless network. By the end of that period, they are just "phones" and what used to be "phones" had become "landline". It would have been symbolic to post this note on August 30th 2023 as that would have been the picture's 10th anniversary, but I'm a few months late.

The oldest phone on the far left is a Sony CM-H888. I bought it in September 1998 and at the time it was a wonder of miniaturization much smaller than its contemporary analog peers. Yes, analog! This was a telephone for making voice calls over analog cellular network and nothing else. No internet, no apps, not even SMS. It looks bulky compared to the rest of this lineup mostly because of its 4*AA NiMH battery pack consuming over half of its volume. It is the only device on this list not powered by a lithium-ion battery.

Rapid technology advancement motivated me to part with my money. I upgraded to a Nokia 8260 a year later (October 1999) which weighs less than half as much (220g vs. 97g), eliminated the protruding antenna, and is a comfortable fit in my pocket instead of a barely-fit bulge. Multiple different technologies helped make this possible, including lithium-ion battery and a switch from AirTouch Cellular's analog network to AT&T Wireless TDMA digital cellular. It also gave me first exposure to a phone app in the form of Nokia's legendary snake game.

A few years after getting the Nokia 8260, I bought a Compaq iPaq personal digital assistant (PDA) to help track my calendar and related adulting information that I could no longer all keep in my head. I appreciated that I had a pocket reminder of my responsibilities, and I admit to a certain level of Geek Cred for carrying around these electronic devices, but it still meant I was carrying them!

Consolidation came in December 2003, when I upgraded to a Motorola MPx200. It was the device that launched "Windows Mobile Smartphone" OS which gave me phone apps to functionally replace my PDA. The screen resolution of 176x220 was a huge upgrade over the Nokia brick but lower than iPaq's 240x320. Plus, both of those screens were monochrome and now I have a color screen. Upgrading from TDMA to GSM digital cellular also meant I gained access to SMS text messaging. And finally, switching to a flip phone eliminated accidental butt-dials.

But it was a lot thicker than the Nokia, and didn't fit in my pocket as nicely. So a year later (December 2004) I upgraded to an Audiovox 5600 (HTC Typhoon). It has all the features of the Motorola MPx200 at size of the Nokia 8260, so it's almost the best of both worlds. The only thing I consider a downgrade is the fact butt-dials started happening again. Especially annoying was a feature where holding down "9" would automatically dial "911" and I could not figure out how to disable it.

So when the Cingular 3125 (HTC Startrek) launched, it caught my attention and I bought one in March 2007. It's a flip phone to eliminate embarrassing butt-dials again, but far thinner than the Motorola MPx200. Hardware had advanced enough to put iPaq resolution screen (240x320 and in color) into a phone, and the laser-etched metal keypad looks way better in person than in pictures.

The first Apple iPhone also launched in 2007, but as an expensive premium product. My CIngular 3125 cost a small fraction of the iPhone up front, and did not require an expensive cellular data plan as the iPhone did. But the cost gap narrowed over the following years. Apple iPhone prices (along with corresponding data plan prices) eventually dropped to within reach of mass market consumers, and it was clear slabs of touch screen glass were the way of the future.

The AT&T HTC Pure (HTC Touch Diamond2) weighted about as much as my Cingular 3125. It lost the cool laser-etched keypad in exchange for a much larger and higher resolution (480x800) screen. It was one of several non-Apple efforts to follow iPhone's lead as of January 2010 and a pretty poor showing at that. The marketing team tried their best trying to find advantages but it was pretty futile. Example: The 480x800 screen resolution was higher than the iPhone 3, but that marketing item was quickly buried by "retina display" of iPhone 4. Phones like HTC Pure could only compete at a lower price and I was fine with that. My Cingular 3125 was falling apart, held together with glue and tape. A cheap not-as-good-as-iPhone unit would suffice.

Minimizing usage of expensive data plan meant my HTC Pure did not get used as a smartphone very much. Mostly just voice calls and calendar, similar to how I had used my earlier phones. I didn't know what I was missing out on until I upgraded to a Samsung Focus in November 2010. Windows Phone 7 was a huge advancement. Its first-party experience became a credible competitor to iPhone and Android, but third-party app support was inferior and would never catch up.

My biggest complaint with the Samsung Focus was its AMOLED screen. The bright high-contrast colors worked well for video and pictures, but its RGBG PenTile matrix proved horrible for text legibility at those resolutions. So when the Nokia Lumia 900 launched with classic RGB color pixels, I jumped over in July 2012. I was happy to accept some color and brightness limitations of a LCD screen in exchange for more legible text. Beyond its screen, I preferred Nokia's sleek industrial design over Samsung's anonymous black blob.

And finally, at the far right of this lineup, is a Nokia Lumia 620 I bought in May 2013. All the Nokia design and RGB matrix of the 900, but in a smaller package running Windows Phone 8. It was fine, but it was still a Windows Phone. After multiple major updates (7.5, 7.8 and 8) it became clear Microsoft was unable or unwilling to match iOS/Android on third-party app support. After losing faith in Microsoft, I never upgraded to Windows Phone 10... er, sorry, "Windows 10 Mobile". Because rebranding always solves fundamental product issues.

I switched to Android in 2015 with a Nexus 5 and I've had Android phones ever since. I still have many of them (and try to keep them running) but a group photo wouldn't be very interesting as they're all touch screen slabs. (Effectively this photo.) RGBG PenTile AMOLED panels came back into my life again with recent phones, but I found that I didn't mind it as much at modern phone screen resolutions. I have less than a dozen apps installed on my current phone so I never got into apps in a big way. But if I needed one, I can be confident an Android app exists. I no longer have to worry about whether an app exists for Windows Phone.

I hardly noticed when Microsoft finally pulled the plug on their phone OS efforts. I was long gone. It's hardly the only platform I own that Microsoft axed.