Last week was somewhat of uneventful. Had off-site meetings for work Monday – Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were catch up days, so for this post, I am going to talk about something else. My obsession with gadgets.

I am somewhat of a gadget whore. Most of my friends know this. For this post I will be talking about phones. Yep, the thing that for most of us is permanently attached to our hands. I thought about this because for “Crew Dinner” last night, most if not all of us, were on our phone surfing the web, answering texts, or checking email. That got me thinking about all the current and previous phones I have owned.

I started out as a Sprint PCS user. I don’t even remember when I bought my first cell phone. I do remember going to the store in south Arlington outside the Parks Mall. The phone I bought was the Sanyo SCP-4500.

When it came time for me to get my phone number, the Sprint rep said that the first three numbers I could have were “XXX”. (Decided to not post my real number.) Then I got to choose what I wanted the last four numbers to be. Melanie was getting a phone at the same time and Zac choose her last four numbers. “4635”, which spell “4MEL”. So I decided to do the same with my name. “4236”, which spell “4BEN”. Not original but I thought it would be easy for people to remember. I had this phone for a long time. Around the same time I had this phone, I bought my first Microsoft Pocket PC. An iPAQ 3765.

I had just about all the attachments with it. Even had one that allowed me to tether my Sanyo phone to it so that I can get on the internet with it. So after a while of having 2 devices, I wanted something that combined the Pocket PC operating system with the phone function. So the next phone I was able to buy was the Motorola MPX200.

By far, this was my favorite. AT&T had just come out with the phone, and being able to port your phone number from carrier to carrier had just started. So I purchased the phone from Amazon, ported my number, and enjoyed this phone. I really liked the clam shell form factor. Made it a lot easier carrying this around than my previous phone and iPAQ. I still have this phone to this day, but it is in pieces. The hinge finally gave out so now I use it for parts for my electronic stuff. I just searched eBay and found I can purchase this phone for $25.00. Must. Not. Buy. Phone.

Which now brings us the the phones I have today and still work.

The step up from the MPx200 phone was the Cingular Audiovox 5600.

The first phone I had that had a camera on it. It could take pictures and video. As you can see I still have this phone today, although it is a lot more scratched up and has been upgraded with new software. The funny thing about this is when I bought the phone, the Cingular rep didn’t know that she was suppose to charge me $30 a month for the data plan. Instead she only charged me $19. Unlimited data for $19. You can’t get that anymore. (I kept that plan until I got my iPhone last year.)

The next step up was my AT&T 8525.

Loved having the slide out keyboard. The touchscreen was nice too. The first real phone that I could use my email with. Also figured out a way to have my work email sent to it. All around, it was a good work phone for me. Could do a lot with the new operating system. Plus this phone got me into flashing new operating systems. I have done that to many times to count. Funny thing is that I now have the original software running on it. It is much quicker that the newer versions.

So now we are at my current phone. The iPhone 3GS 32 GB White.

Bought this for myself as a birthday gift. It’s sad cause my iPod I bought for my birthday 2 years before is only 30 GB. This phone has really spoiled me on touch screens. I sometimes grab other phones trying to do some of the same gestures I can do on the iPhone, and it won’t work. Having a huge app store also makes this the phone to have. A few things I would like them to changed

• Better camera with flash.
• Have icons of apps turn when the phone is in landscape mode and let me scroll from top to bottom.
• Allow more customization of icons, background, etc. without having to jailbreak.

I know there are more, but these are the ones I can think of right now.

Future Phone (Yes I am already thinking about a new one):

HTC Desire

I am really excited about the Android platform. This is HTC’s version of the N1 or Google phone. It has a better camera, tighter integration with google services, and a more open base for developers. To develop for the iPhone, I had to pay $100. For the Android platform, it’s free. (As far as I know.) Plus, being a JAVA developer, the learning curve to write application for this phone is greatly reduced. Then again, there is the new Windows 7 series phone.

I think they are trying to play catch-up with Apple and Google, but they have done a really great job with the UI. And the integration with social media looks awesome.

We will see how everything stacks up in the next few months as to which phone I will get. Right now, unless the new iPhone can beat out the HTC Desire, I will be going google by the end of the year.

Sorry for the boring post this week. I know I still need a lot more work on writing blog posts. “Practice makes perfect” or something close to it I hope.