The internet speed has increased a lot since 2000. Pixel size, colors and camera have also improved a lot, since 2011 I don't feel the need to buy new phones. Mobile internet was already good enough for me with 3G.

Year   Standard Bandwidth           Ping  Standby Name
1996 - 2G                                 1 day   Nokia, could not send SMS
2000 - 2G       9.6kb/s               >1s 2 days  Ericsson T28
2001 - 2.5G     57.6kb/s              >1s 10 days Ericsson T39
2001 - 2G                                 2 days  Ericsson T66
2002 - 2.5G     57.6kb/s              >1s 10 days Ericsson R520
2002 - 2.5G     64.2kb/s              >1s 8 days  Ericsson T68
2003 - 2.5G     64.2kb/s              >1s 7 days  Sony Ericsson T630
2005 - 3G       384kb/s             700ms 7 days  Sony Ericsson V600
2007 - 3G       384kb/s             700ms 7 days  Sony Ericsson W880i
2008 - 3G       3.6mb/s             400ms 8 days  Sony Ericsson T700
2009 - 3G       10mb/s              300ms 3 days  Nokia N900
2011 - 3G       14.4mb/s            200ms 3 days  Apple iPhone 4s
2015 - 4G       150mb/s              70ms 1 day   Samsung Galaxy A7
2017 - 4G       600mb/s              30ms 3 days  Apple iPhone X
2020 - 5G       4gb/s(5G) 1gb/s(4G)  10ms 5 days  Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max
2021 - 5G       4gb/s(5G) 2gb/s(4G)  10ms 4 days  Samsung Galaxy S21

It looks like I change phone very often but that's not the case.

I have 2 phones: one for work, one for private use.

I have been using Sony Ericsson T700 as work phone until 2015, when I got a Samsung Galaxy A7. The Sony Ericsson T700 is still connected to a computer with a USB cable for sending SMS to myself.

The Nokia N900 runs linux, I stopped using it because using it as a phone it was not so practical so I bought an iphone.

In 2015, I got a new work phone, the Samsung Galaxy A7.

I used the iphone 4s until 2017 when the battery died and I bought an iphone X.

My son broke the iphone X screen so I bought an iphone 12 pro max.

In 2021, the battery of the galaxy A7 became swollen and I got a new work phone, the galaxy S21.

I plan to use the iphone 12 and the galaxy s21 for as long as possible.

Ultimately, I want a good enough phone running linux mainline, a distribution like postmarketOS. I have a pinephone and ordered a librem 5.

  • The first phone with a music player is the Ericsson T28 (add-on)
  • The first phone with a camera and a color screen is the Ericsson T68 (add-on, VGA resolution, low quality)
  • The first phone that identify music and songs is the Sony Ericsson W880i with TrackId, it recorded sound with the microphone and sent it to the trackid service on the internet. I was looking for this because I was wondering if TrackId became Shazam. Shazam has not relationship with TrackId and it is an earlier service that was delivered over regular voice call and SMS. Sony closed TrackId in 2017.
  • The first phone with a decent camera and decent screen is the iphone 4s
  • The camera in iphone X is good but it takes a second to take the first photo
  • The camera in iphone 12 pro max is good and fast. It takes a bit less than a second to start recording videos.

Tags: #smartphones #mobilephones