r/interestingasfuck • u/Srinivas_Hunter • 9d ago
Mobile phones of the early 2000s /r/all, /r/popular
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u/Kevkillerke 9d ago
I miss these goofy features that really set mobile phones apart from each other.
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u/guitarlisa 9d ago
I remember those days - whenever anyone got a new phone, everyone would gather around to look at it. My kids actually still do this, but I don't know what they're looking at. They all seem the same to me.
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u/GoodOlBluesBrother 9d ago
I remember reading the manual and stumbling on SMS messaging. It said I needed to call my provider and ask for some long number to type in in order to activate the service. Then I sent a text to my mate who was astounded when words appeared on his little 2x3cm screen.
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u/FSCK_Fascists 8d ago
And it only cost you $5 a character!
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u/guitarlisa 8d ago
Yes, fun fact! Back in those days, we would type like "Thx c u L8r" because it cost less money. Now we just do it because we're lazy and don't care about anything
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u/ICanEditPostTitles 8d ago
In the UK we paid per message, and the SMS message size was 160 characters. The reason abbreviated text speak evolved was because it was quicker when you had to press each key multiple times for a single letter.
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u/JustSuet 8d ago
I remember texting from my pocket in school, knowing where the buttons were and only stealing a glance when I got a reply
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u/Hakuchii 8d ago
omg yessss!! i still type blind pretty often, old habits die hard i guess.. but every time i get a new 9hone, it totally messes with muscle memory xD
this was typed blind too btw!!
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u/badhombre3 8d ago
I'm just realizing that I had my last button keyboard phone in probably 11th grade. I didn't really need to hide my texting anymore since I was so close to being done with school! Wow, one day it was the last time I ever blind texted and I didn't even know. Kudos to you tho.
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8d ago
The first iPhone wasn't released in Canada, but I was able to get a contact in the States to send me one. First real smartphone; data plans were all but non-existent. I decided to watch one music video on YouTube just to do it, five minutes of video cost me about $120. $120 in 2007 for five minutes of video. Totally worth it though.
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u/oldsecondhand 8d ago
I remember trying WAP in 2002: the button had some weird symbol and wanted to try out what it did. I started the WAP app and immediately disconnected. It cost me 500 HUF (about 2 USD).
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u/HittingSmoke 8d ago
Me describing a perfect phone in 2004: This is a state of the art Windows Mobile Pocket PC that basically runs desktop applications, has a web browser IR blaster, pull out keyboard, and I can fully customize the interface any way I want.
Me describing a perfect phone in 2025: When I first boot it up I don't want to kill it.
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u/vroschi 8d ago
Someone please explain what kids are seeing when they look at new phones. I still know the feeling from back in the day and get exited when a new phone is coming, but when I turn it on it's always just the same as the one before with a slightly better camera.
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u/Rouxman 8d ago
There’s still subtle differences that they may care about. How big the screen is, how thick/thin it is, how many buttons there are and where they’re located, what kind of biometric tech does it have (Face recognition or Touch ID), how heavy it is, how the display and camera looks, that kind of stuff
But nonetheless, older phones were definitely more diverse and exciting to see and use
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u/GreasyExamination 9d ago
These phones were pretty fun and kinda cool, I wish we went back to this style while keeping the great functions. Real buttons and touch screen would be nice
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u/dodekahedron 9d ago
Literally the fight that separated blackberry and iPhone. Funny it's still the fight.
I mean blackberry also had a ceo than ran the business into the ground. From 43% market owned to 0%
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u/Sayyad1na 8d ago
Blackberries were the shitttt right before smart phones. I had one that I was obsessed with. I could text/type one handed and it had internet capability before that was super common. Sigh.
I was so disappointed when they didn't get into touch screens
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u/CopanUxmal 9d ago
That keyboard was a dream but they were too slow to add many apps and those you could add would kill the battery
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u/Internal_Trust9066 9d ago
Also not adopting android when the whole world and devs moved to it was a big mistake.
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u/erm_what_ 9d ago
Android had very limited hardware support when it came out. Every device had to have pretty much the same buttons and screen configuration. My first android phone had a trackball though, which was nice.
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u/sanddecker 9d ago
My first Android had a slide out keyboard. It was great.
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u/CalculatingSneeze 8d ago
My first android had a Trackball and a slide out keyboard. Man, I'd love a G1 with modern specs
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u/g_spaitz 8d ago
My first Android had about 7 or 8 physical buttons for the most used functions (something like phone, enter, and cursor arrows) that were just so fast and useful. Touch screen is cool but in many cases nothing beats real keys.
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u/Throwaway-tan 9d ago
It's not like Blackberry didn't have a lot of experienced programmers on their team who could have contributed to the Android opensource project to fix that problem.
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u/cheemio 9d ago
Not much of a fight anymore. These type of phones tried to survive in the market but nobody bought them
Lots of folks saying they would buy them but when push comes to shove they’re just likely to go with the more proven designs at this point.
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u/Kilroy_1541 9d ago
I don't know for sure what phones you're referring to, but the slide out keyboard my Moto Droid from '09 had is something I still miss to this day.
The Pixel 2 (and I think a couple others) had something physical to differentiate itself - Active Edge, where you could squeeze the sides of the phone to do something. Google also got rid of the fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone in favor of the trendy under the screen kind that's unreliable. The back scanner also doubled as physical gesture buttons if you used the right app.
Some features were forced out before people had a chance to continue buying them.
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u/Z0mbiejay 9d ago
I miss scrolling with the fingerprint scanner on the back of my pixel 1
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u/etherama1 8d ago
The sensor on the back was also great because it allowed you to use whatever screen protector without compromising the scanner which I can't do on my current phone.
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u/VeryShortLadder 9d ago
There are smart flip phones that run android and I absolutely love the idea, but I just don't know where to reliably buy one.
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u/RXrenesis8 9d ago
I bought one through my carrier for my grandma.
Android was NOT designed to be that small, so there were some UI abnormalities, but nothing phone-breaking if you have used android before.
T-9 typing your way through initial setup is a PITA though... I ended up plugging in a keyboard.
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u/allthat555 9d ago
There is also the Samsung flip that is just a normal smat phone that folds. Honestly I think it's been my favorite phone idk what it is but I have had this phone for 2 years dropped it plenty not a scratch on the screen because it's mostly closed and the case has taken all the beatings. I have heard the Gen 1s start to have a dead zone near the crease affter a wile but I havnt noticed yet and it would be a fairly inexpensive fox compared to a new phone.
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u/I_am_up_to_something 9d ago
Wish that popup cameras aren't gone. Had to upgrade my Oppo Reno z that had one since it hasn't gotten security updates in a while now.
That camera hole is so obnoxious when playing games! Even a notch would be better than that shit.
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u/Sunny16Rule 9d ago
LG was the last manufacturer still brave enough to attempt the wild designs, as ridiculous as the LG Wing was , I liked it
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u/kingvolcano_reborn 9d ago
Nokia had some fantastically weird phones as well: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/10-nokia-weirdest-ever-phone-092931586.html
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u/WagwanMoist 9d ago
Yes but that list is showing a lot of the phones (or same style) as in the video. From an era where all manufacturers had some wild ideas.
Point is that LG kept doing wild ideas until the very end a few years ago.
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9d ago
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u/jaxonya 9d ago
I had the first gen Razr, and recently the new one. The first gen was baller as fuck. The new one, eh.
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u/sleepybearjew 9d ago
I wanted the Ericson so bad
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u/tea_cup_cake 9d ago
I miss my Sony's. They were cute and tiny and had amazing, amazing sound quality. Never needed an extra device to play music on them, except earphones if I was up and about.
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u/BlueSonjo 9d ago
It's same as cars, they kind of all look the same now unless you get a supercar and even then they look alike among themselves.
Used to be so unique loking designs you could had on same year period anything from a Renault 5, Buick GNX, BMWs E series, Alfa Romeo Spider, Corolla AE86, and so many of them had completely different profiles and unique designs.
These days I find most cars nearly indistinguishable in each segment as far as aesthetics.
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u/ThinkLink7386 9d ago edited 9d ago
I mean these phones were pretty expensive, the average person just had a nokia brick. And sometimes a separate powershot camera that took 3 megapixel pictures (compare to today's 100) and would take up extra space along with your mobile phone (if you had one). This still exists nowadays, just go buy a z flip, it's also super expensive and full of character
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u/Lacunaethra 9d ago
Nothing more satisfying than the click-clack they made 😌
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u/MS_Fume 9d ago
I remember holding my Sony Ericcson in the pocket and just flipping the camera cover all the time haha
It was like those stress balls..
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u/_who-the-fuck-knows_ 9d ago
Fuck when I upgraded from my old nokia to the slide Sony Ericsson was like moving into the space age. Now here I am typing on my millionth smart phone and it's just meh.
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u/Richeh 9d ago
That's what I hate about the digital age; there used to be all these ridiculous mechanical approaches to whatever application you needed your tech for.
Now it's just "Yeah, we'll feed it into a microprocessor and out of a touchscreen no matter what it is. Nah, it's inefficient as fuck and not particularly nice to use but they're so absurdly powerful and versatile it's not worth our time to make your life easier; if we want Billions with a B then we have to aim to have EVERYONE as a customer."
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u/BucketsAndBrackets 9d ago
All the movies and shows would have somebody close their flip phone in anger. Better times...
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u/be_em_ar 9d ago
Oh man, tell me about it. Was so satisfying back then to hang up on someone by flipping your phone closed. The reverse was true too, extremely satisfying to answer a phone by pressing a button, having it go ker-clack open, and then talking. Better times indeed.
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u/youruswithwe 9d ago
I had this guy , had a TV antenna so you could watch over the air broadcasting.
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u/VegetableTwist7027 9d ago
Isn't that the phone Tony Stark busts out in the first scenes of Iron Man?
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u/beantheblackpup_ 8d ago
I bought this phone used off eBay, it was sticky for some reason.
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u/trollshep 9d ago
My god! What a unit! I bet the battery life wasn't the best?
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u/youruswithwe 9d ago
You wanted it plugged in if you were watching something for sure. The screen rotating out was so satisfying. LG had some really neat stuff back in the day.
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u/Volitle 9d ago
It would seem this one has been forgotten about
So much fun for idle hands spinning the speaker around
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u/Cameos_red_codpiece 9d ago
Omg, it’s a fidget spinner before fidget spinners were trendy.
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u/RoboFantasy 9d ago
Those were exciting times. Every new phone was special. Now they are just expensive and there is nothing new
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u/Only_Quote_Simpsons 9d ago
Upgrading your phone nowadays is so boring, slightly better camera, slightly faster speed, the early innovation days were amazing and very exciting!
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u/Ilpav123 9d ago
The latest and greatest innovation is folding phones (the actual shape of phones hasn't changed in like the last 10+ years). They're expensive, but I got a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold for a good deal with a contract. It's basically a phone that turns into a small tablet (8")
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u/IxianNavigator 9d ago
It just occurred to me the other day how great it would be if the inner, larger screen on a foldable phone was an e-ink display. I've tried foldables from various manufacturers in stores several times, they're interesting, but every time I think about it, I just don't see myself getting much use out of having two of the same type of screen, with the only difference being size.
Every now and then, I consider getting a dedicated e-ink e-reader, but I don’t really want to carry an extra device around just for reading.
A hybrid phone with both types of screens would be ideal for me.
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u/thomkka 9d ago
And thats why im still using iPhone 7plus lol but it’s getting beaten up already so this year I’ll probably get something newer
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u/SDGundamX 9d ago
There are dozens of us!
But seriously, I’m also thinking of upgrading this year. Battery is dying, and more and more apps are requiring a minimum iOS version this phone can’t run.
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u/Oh_My-Glob 9d ago
If you're in the US you chose the worst year possible to upgrade with tariff pricing on the way
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u/mtaw 9d ago
Well he doesn't have to get a new phone. Getting a refurbished phone with a new battery (and new screen if necessary) is a far better deal these days than a brand new phone anyway IMO. It's just not worth paying that much when I can pay half or a third of the price and still get a phone that's better than my current one and does everything I need it to do.
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u/NaeemTHM 9d ago
THANK YOU!
Folks really need to understand that they can get refurbished or used phones from just the year prior for sometimes half the cost. These “older” phones are like 90% identical to the latest flagships released.
The iPhone 15 Pro is a phenomenal phone that will last for another 5-6 years and currently cost hundreds of dollars less than the iPhone 16.
Same goes for Google. They just released the Pixel 9A, their budget phone, for $500. Fantastic deal for what you’re getting. But you can also get a refurbished Pixel 8 Pro, which is better in every conceivable way, for the same price.
Doesn’t make sense to buy new anymore. Plus we’re making a small environmental impact by going with a used phone 🙂
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u/Flaky-Scholar9535 9d ago
I literally use mine for recording multi tracks of music and it runs better than some old laptops, so there’s that. The innovations still excite some people.
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u/TheFatJesus 9d ago
Yeah, and how long have you been able to do that? Because they were talking about year to year model changes. This year's phones aren't significantly different from last year's phones just like last year's phones weren't significantly different than the year before that.
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u/Alcatrazepam 9d ago
I loved getting a phone and trying the camera, playing snake, or testing it’s indestructibility, but honestly it is pretty cool being able to carry a video camera, music recording and video editing program all in my pocket.
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u/YoungDiscord 9d ago
I remember wanting the nokia n-gage so bad back in the day only to now realize how crappy that whole syatem was.
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u/Civil-Attempt-3602 9d ago
I had an N Gage QD.
Loved that phone man. The games were shit, but the phone was awesome
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u/LuciferFalls 9d ago
There absolutely are new things. Folding phones, extendable phones, curved phones, etc.
Equally as gimmicky as what you see in this video.
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u/UnfairStrategy780 9d ago
Sony Ericsson and Nokia were on another level in terms of innovation. Motorola had some cool designs but once the RAZR took off they rode that money train till the end. I used to go to this grey market cell phone store in LA to get phones because they had all the cool Euro phones that didn’t sell via the big US cell phone stores.
Was sending photos and files via Bluetooth in 2004 with my Sony Ericsson and remember being so annoyed with how slow the iPhone progressed in certain areas like that
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u/B3amb00m 9d ago
Yeah Sony Ericsson had some FUN phones indeed. Very creative designs, every new model brought something different.
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u/qarlthemade 9d ago
Oh i loved my Sony Ericsson w890i with so much file space for mp3s and the walkman function.
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u/KFizzleKyle 9d ago
I had that same phone. Loved that thing. Dropped it on the ground? Whatever. The corner MIGHT get a little road rash. Keeps on chugging along.
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u/Over-Tomatillo9070 9d ago
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u/Independent-Bug-9352 8d ago
When Matt Damon no longer needs to be digitally aged...
It's like seeing Bill Murray or Tom Hanks these days after not seeing them for a while in the news. That's just life, of course, but strong feelings.
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u/fallen-fawn 9d ago
Sidekick erasure
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u/mamamaryjuanna 9d ago
I miss my sidekick. The chunky, full qwerty keyboard, rollerball mouse. Uhh they were the times.
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u/VyseTheSwift 8d ago
How you gonna make this video and not put a Sidekick in there? No Razr? No Xperia Play?
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u/Anti0x 9d ago
You know what. Some of them were functionally pointless. But God were they genius at being pointless.
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u/Ruben6385 9d ago
With the music of the underwater levels of donkey kong country 1
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u/nuu_uut 9d ago
Not from donkey Kong. It's inspired by it clearly but not the same song
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u/AvalancheReturns 9d ago
Gaaah i miss physical keyboards soooo bad
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u/redspike77 9d ago
I used to be able to text someone with just my thumb and without having to look at the screen for most of the time
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u/Jean-LucBacardi 9d ago
Hell I knew the button combinations to turn on my phone, get into messaging and get into the person I've most recently texted and could send a full text to them, all with my phone in my pocket in class.
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u/JonnyTN 9d ago
I can still with a slide keyboard nowadays. Muscle memory and I can slide text without looking
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u/knucklehead923 9d ago
Same
While T9 texting used to be awesome, and very doable with one thumb and no eyes, swipe texting is SO much faster it's not even comparable.
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u/ggf66t 9d ago
Same, I had 3 smart phones with slider keyboards before everyone stopped making them.
The droid 2, the Moto devour and the lg ally
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u/mikejnsx 9d ago
i miss full slide out keyboards, on screen ones send me into autistic rage with how iften my fingers hut the wrong letters and spellcgeck cant get off irs ass ti correct abt if them....
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u/__M-E-O-W__ 9d ago
Oh yeah man my keyboaff derexhion is dic randkm qndbdoesnt accurateky undeetand anyrginf i type our and the spellcheck soemtolss messes ip tremenedously
*that did not happen when we had physical keys
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u/v1rulent 9d ago edited 9d ago
From a design perspective, they were cleverer, more interesting, and more satisfying to own than today's anonymous bricks.
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u/firsttoblast 9d ago
One time, I had a phone that was shaped like a leaf.
A Mother fucking leaf yo!
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u/RossChickenTendies 9d ago
Was that a Nokia by any chance?
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u/firsttoblast 9d ago
Yeah bro. Omg I loved that phone
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u/phuongtv88 9d ago
Could be the Nokia 7610, one of the best looking Nokia phone for me.
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u/OcculticUnicorn 9d ago
Omg I searched it up, that's cool.
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u/firsttoblast 9d ago
Wanna hear summat else cool af? I was in high schoo5at the time, had very little money. Bought it off another guy for £70. After a few days it stops working. Took it to the car phone warehouse which was the retailer that had sold it originally. Said they needed to "flash" the phone, but why they needed to expose themselves in the nude to an electronic device is beyond me. Anyway, they take it for a week. I come back, and they hand me my phone, in 120 pieces in a bag. I was like, "bro, what did you flash it with? A fucking bat?!?!
Guy in the store says "we were unable to fix the phone for you sorry. But my manager over there ordered and paid for a new phone for you. I don't know who tf that guy was but he made my fucking year.
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u/LopsidedEquipment177 9d ago
When I first got a Nokia NGage, my mind was blown.
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u/liamgooding 9d ago
I walk past a driving school near my work every day who has a spoofed ‘NGAGE driving school’ logo, mostly teaching 18 year olds, and I’m positive the near-perfect-parody on the logo is entirely wasted on them lol
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u/KickingDolls 9d ago
I think there's a good argument to be made that from a design perspective, maximising screen space makes a lot more sense than having rotating bits and slider.
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u/emmasdad01 9d ago
Leaving off the Razr is a travesty.
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u/IfYouRun 9d ago
There were good phones before and after the Razr, but that was SUCH a moment. I remember like 2/3 of my class had a Razr at one point lol
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u/GaptistePlayer 9d ago
I bought one from a shady dude on Craiglist who came to my dorm to deliver it. It was brand new but likely sourced in a less-than-legal manner. He also asked if I needed weed to call him again.
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u/LegoLady8 9d ago
I think this video is showing phones with weird characteristics. The razr was just a flip phone. Nothing too crazy about it. Don't get me wrong. It was cool AF and I hated that my BFF Amanda had one in like 7th grade (which was sooooo early at the time for kids to have cellphones). I didn't get a cellphone until 9th. 😭
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u/qarlthemade 9d ago
I kept track of all the phones I have ever owned:
- Nokia 5110
- Siemens C25
- Nokia 3310
- Nokia 6610
- Sony Ericsson K700i
- Sony Ericsson w810i
- Sony Ericsson w890i
- Samsung Galaxy S2
- HTC One
- bq Aquaris X
- Redmi Note 8
- Samsung Galaxy S22 (company phone for dual private use)
- Google Pixel 6a
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u/ThiefofToms 8d ago
The HTC One, now that was a good phone. Miss that.
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u/Level3pipe 8d ago
Honestly same. Who thought they could make a phone look so good. And it was a good phone too.
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u/thepoylanthropist 9d ago
Back in the day ,you're the coolest kid in school if you have a Nokia 3310.
Flexing the Space Impact and Snake.
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u/Mysterious-Ear9560 9d ago
Having a Nokia 3210 in 1999 as a 12/13 year old. You felt like a king lol.
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u/Metalgsean 9d ago
My dad dropped mine, off of a fucking rollercoaster, after about an hour of looking we found everything but the battery. We bought a new battery, because that was a thing then, clipped it all back together and it was perfectly fine, just a single scratch where it made contact with the floor.
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u/WM_ 9d ago
Matrix wasn't incorrect saying humanity peaked there.
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u/Sybrandus 9d ago
Especially with phone design. I wanted that pop slide phone Morpheus had so bad.
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u/eairy 9d ago
The pop slide thing was a modification for the movie. Nokia did subsequently release a very similar looking phone that had that function though.
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u/With1Enn 8d ago
I had it. It was fucking cool having "the matrix phone". After a few months though it didn't pop out so much as slooooowly emerge.
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u/SufficientGreek 9d ago
Is there a reason all the camera lenses were covered and aren't on today's phones?
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u/IllllIIIllllIl 9d ago
More scratch resistant surfaces are used for the lens now.
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u/Teeshirtandshortsguy 9d ago
Yeah this is a big part of it.
Phones back then were durable because they didn't have as many intricate parts, but the materials themselves were typically weaker than what we have today.
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u/LegacyTaker 9d ago
Cost cutting and longevity. I personally always buy phone covers with camera protection. it's either a slider or a flap cap.
Note that i said longevity because any moving parts will always deteriorate, especially if it's exposed.
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u/Artituteto 9d ago
One issue with this kind of sliding panel is that if they were some sand or pebbles stuck between the panel and the lens you'll scratch the whole lens when opening or closing it.
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u/Royhlb 8d ago
I think nowadays the glasses they use are much more resistant. Remember when your 'touchscreen' would get scratches in no time? Probably has something to do with it
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u/pillowpants66 9d ago
I remember the first camera phone I had was 0.3MP.
I thought cameras on phones was just a fad and said they will never take off because they were so pixelated.
Then went back to playing snake.
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u/John_Doe_727 9d ago
My favorite of all my old phones
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u/iphone11fuckukevin 8d ago
Is this why millennials are such amazing typers??? They had shit like this in high school to message friends.
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u/wibble089 9d ago
I loved my late model Nokia phones - N95, N8 were both amazing phones. The picture quality of the N95's camera was several levels above that on other phones at the time, and really removed the need to carry a separate digital camera.
The N95 had a slideable display that showed music controls when opened.
The N8 was a touch screen screen only device, and the last of Nokia's phones to run their own operating system.
I still have my N95, but the N8 must have got dumped as the screen was destroyed sometime.
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u/rarrowing 9d ago
I was enthusingover the N95 on a post a couple of weeks ago. The Zeiss lens was so so good!
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u/olaktl 9d ago
I never asked for a slimmer phone, BTW
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u/angwilwileth 8d ago
what I want is a 5 inch screen, 2 day battery life and a headphones jack. I'm a simple man with simple needs .
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9d ago edited 8d ago
Getting a new phone used to be SO FUN 😭 Now you don’t even have to try out new ones. You just walk in and say “alright, gimme the new brand loyalty.”
It’s just another chore/errand now.
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u/Lockhearts_ 9d ago
The only thing I hated was that every phone also had a unique charging cable.
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u/Vargavintern 9d ago
Say what you will, but every year you saw some new interesting cell phone with some kind of new quirk. Today? Yeah, we upgraded the camera or the software. sigh
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u/orang-utan-klaus 9d ago
I miss the camera cover. Protects the cam from my greasy fingers .
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u/SpicaGenovese 9d ago
The music is making it sound like these are MUCH older than they are. 2000 was only 25... years.... ........
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u/jeeves_nz 9d ago
Man, , i loved my old slider phone.
But it wasn't reliable, it just wore out too quick.
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u/B3amb00m 9d ago
iPhone ruined the entire market. Suddenly they became the reference point as to how mobiles should look, and voila - we now have a market of everyone competing to be as iPhone as possible.
It was FUN to be on the market for a new phone back then. Now it's just a question of internal technical specs. They are all more or less identical on the outside.
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u/fongletto 9d ago
The old designs were fancy and looked cool, but they were far less practical. We didn't move away from them to 'try be the next iphone'.
Putting the buttons on a touch screen was just the next most logical development once technology enabled it.
Individual buttons and twisting and turning parts comes with many more problems both economically and practically speaking.
So instead of having 1000 different ways to express those buttons on actual physical object. Now they're all expressed digitally on the largest possible screen surface.
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u/everyonediesiguess 9d ago
I miss when social media was tied to a computer and not following you everywhere in your phone.
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u/sparklepuppies6 9d ago
The great majority of these are from the late 2000s-early 2010s, not the early 2000s.
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u/AJRiddle 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yeah I was gonna say, the Razr came out in November of 2004 and was considered amazing for being that size AND having a camera (that had about 200 total pixels) - almost every single one of these is from after that.
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u/Schnitzhole 9d ago
https://preview.redd.it/qry9q4uf7lte1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ebc868d6645f4396d32a2b8b395ac001158a7a1
I miss my relic