I started using a mobile phone aka handphone aka cellphone when I was at the age of 13. Why so early you must be wondering. Because I attended choir practise every few nights. The practises were from 8 til 10 at night. Which is pretty late for someone that young.

The place was also deserted, dark and far out from the city. So the handphone became very handy if my parents were late. Unfortunately when I started using handphones, there was only fixed lines offered. Maxis and Celcom were the only service provider back then. I opted for Maxis. The price of a phone call was a shocking 60sen per second I think. There was still no SMS. I could get service SMS but no SMS sending services then. My very first phone was a blue Alcatel One Touch. Hehe. What a chunky monkey with an antenna that stretches out as well.

A few years after that, they introduced the SMS. I tell you, that was when I was extremely happy. Then came out the Prepaid also. How cool was that. I gave that a try. I tried the Celcom prepaid and also the TimeCel prepaid. Eventually I bought a Maxis prepaid. Well back to the SMS technology, at that time you could only text to your fellow network users. So it was only Celcom to Celcom and Maxis to Maxis. Then I remembered at 16, it was a full blown SMS technology where we could SMS to anyone on any network. I went crazy and that was when my texting obsession kicked in. I was then using a Siemens handphone, it was tiny and had a small antenna. It was dark blue in colour. It could fit so nicely in my pencil case or my small handbags. Those small bags were so fashionable back then.

When I was 17, there was a new craze. The different colour back lights for handphones. First was the blue light, then came the greenish light then the white light. I then had the blue light phone. A Nokia, my very first one. It was small compact and it had Polyphonic ringtones. My god, that was just uber cool at that time. I could also change the casing according to my outfit. It was pure bliss. Oh, the keypad was shaped like a butterfly something I like too. I also love the colour turquoise, so yes this was a perfect match for me. At that point of time, we were introduced with emoticons and also “picture messaging”. Some were templates and some were images drawn using the symbols. It was mighty awesome. Hehe.

Then came the big leap in life, when we all stopped seeing things in monochrome. The coloured handphone. Up next was the camera phone. MMS was going places. So, I got myself a Nokia 7250. Interchangeable casing, with polyphonic ringtones, camera and colour screen. It was a prize possession to own such a cool phone. I had a few casings as well. Purple, grey and turquoise. I was a happy girl. Oh, my friends and I went on a photo frenzy. We seem to be taking pictures of our daily lives. It was a lot of fun.

Then it mobile technology upgraded. We can now use mp3 ringtones. Everybody had some song going on. MMS got cheaper. There was a ringtone service where you could download for RM3. Handphones felt more personalize, our own casing, our own theme, own wallpapers. How cool was that.

If you thought that it would all end there, you were wrong. Next up I got a Nokia 6230. It was the first ever that had an expandable external memory. It was pretty sleek as well. Changeable cover as well. I could install games, upload mp3s to listen to and take more photos as there was more storage.

Since I just love handphones, gadgets and what nots. I was always following up with technology and everything new. It was then when I fell in love with a slider phone. It was just cool to me. It had even more features now. I could install themes too. There was also a small little caller image. It was the Nokia 6270. This phone lasted me so long. Had so many new things I could do with. I had special ringtones for every group. I edited my own ringtones. Hehe. Talk about semangat.

But sadly my trusty phone came to an end. Everything was going wrong with it. Couldn’t receive calls but could receive texts. I had to let it go. So I was hunting for a new phone at that time and the Motorola E6 Rokr was out at that time. Sadly they didn’t sell it in Australia. My heart was locked on it already at that point of time. It was just rocking with awesome features. So, I bought one on ebay. I was quite happy with it. Though the camera wasn’t so good. It was cool to join the Motorola band wagon. Not only cause I wanted to join the band wagon, the name had it’s on meaning to me as well.  I didn’t realize I was a klutz, I kept losing and misplacing my stylus. So I gave in and hunted for something else.

I got yet another good deal on ebay and got myself a Samsung U700. It was the prettiest thing ever. Silver, mirror function, slider, slim, 3G and the whole works. I love it to bits. I used it for such a long period before it crapped out on me of old age. But man, I love this phone. It says me in so many ways.

A good phone came to it’s last breath. So what next? I went back to Nokia. As they had this really cool QWERTY handphone. The E71. I liked it cause it had the QWERTY keypad, 3G, MMS, mp3, camera, applications and many more. Oh and also the name had a special meaning to me. But little did I know, updates were needed ever so often and it kept screwing me over. It’s still the phone am using as it is really practical and useful. User friendly too.

I know and I already feel the urge to get a new phone. I have a solid reason to it, which I shall not disclose here. I have no idea what to turn to. I want something that has everything and yet not too out there. Not too common. Not too flashy. Something I can use for work and play. Any suggestions?

Update : It’s starting to hang on me now. Dang.

Happy 59th Birthday Ayah!