Cellphone Ownership - A History Through Time

I have taken a decision to be less agnostic about cell phone handset brand names. There used to be time when a brand name of a device equated to a specific value proposition in the sense of: quality, sophistication, productivity and value added pricing if there ever is such a thing.

Just half over 2014 I opted to take ownership of an LG based cell phone handset. This was the first time I deviated from an established norm in terms of traditional cell phone brands.

In January 2015, I had an urgent need for a dual SIM cell phone device and voila, a Hisense device it was.

Ericsson T68

Allow me to contextualise the the bias of brands I have owned since around 1995:The chronology of cell brands I have personally owned since around the mid 1990s is listed below:

• 1995/6: Siemens S3
• 2001: Ericsson T68
• 2002: Siemens SX1
• 2003/4: Nokia 9300i
• 2006/7: Nokia E90 Communicator
• 2008: HTC Desire
• 2014: LG G3
• 2015: Hisense HS-U939

Needless to say, up to 2 years or so, I have had an illustrious yet conservative interaction with a limited range of cell phone handsets. The conservative aspect is the bias towards eurocentric based cell phone OEM manufactures. However, from 2008 onward, the bias diametrically swung towards the OEMs in the Far East.

My choice of handsets is usually very much informed by the need to be able to develop custom applications to address specific I have. Since I never liked the Symbian development environment, the arrival of the Android OS environment was a welcome introduction. I started learning Java in earnest (and probably with focused passion) in order to develop a few native applications. That was certainly a lot of fun.

LG G3

In the near future I am keen to "experiment" with a Microsoft based cell phone device. I still find the Windows 8 inspired rectangular shapes rather peculiar, but the Microsoft hardware seems to have an appealing attraction worth interrogating.

Similarly and for totally different reasons I might consider an Apple based device to learn to appreciate what the fuss is about these iOS devices. I am owning the first model iPad to date and quite frankly, I have a huge challenge making it meet my basic requirements - even the HTC Desire is such a more useful and pleasant device to use!

I have not yet ventured into neither Blackberry nor Samsung based devices. I have no intention to do so in the long term (next ten years) though that is certainly not a decision cast in stone.