Verizon iphone and my long personal history of cell phones

The new iPhone was released this week for Verizon. The iPhone was my favorite phone and Verizon is my favorite service. I have always been a sucker for new phone technology and I would really like to get my hands on the iPhone but have no real reason to get rid of my Droid X. I love the smart phone concept and am always interested in the latest gadgets. I began thinking about my personal history with cell phones and came up with my time-line of phones......enjoy!

My first service was Cellular One and my first phone was a Nokia 918 an analog phone. I thought I was so cool with my brand new phone.I bought the phone in 1997, paid over $100  for it, and there was no such thing as monthly plans.

It  had strictly flat fees .... $29.99 a month just to have service then
then 22 cents a minute during the day and  11 cents a minute nights
It was very easy to run up very expensive phone bills. 

Then in 1999 I bought my second phone, a first generation Motorola Startac.
It cost $250 but  I  was finally able to get a monthly plan.
I remember bills being over $100 a month for minimal amount of minutes and the phone did not work very good.
The reception was terrible. It had come out right when digital phones had taken over from analog and
the technology was brand new had many flaws.
I remember hating this phone because it would always drop calls and I would always have to shake it around to pick up a signal.
I accidentally dropped it at the Taste of Chicago and it burst into a bunch of pieces.

When the Startac broke i went and bought a Nokia 7100 but this was short lived. Cellular One had been converted to Cingular Wireless and the bill had gone up. I had moved out by then and could no longer afford a cell phone. It was a luxury not a necessity so in order to better budget my money I canceled the service and decided to go without a phone for a while. 

My next phone was the Panasonic Durmax for AT&T. I had changed jobs and was making more money and was able to afford a phone. My company also offered a nice discount on the phone and monthly bill.
The phone was really awesome. It had a rubber coating that made it heavy duty and it had very good service. The plan was great too. I can't quite remember exactly how much but I do remember it was very cheap. I  had that phone from the  2001 until 2003. In mid 2002 everyone started to get Nextel phones with the 2-way radios. I wanted one too but needed to wait until my contract expired.

I had moved to a new apartment and my AT&T phone had poor service inside my place and my contract was up. Most of my friends had service with Nextel  so I switched over. The phone was very expensive. It cost around $350 but revolutionary for its time.

• walkie talkie
• color screen
• downloadable ringtones
• removable smart card
• primitive internet access

These things were all the latest  features a phone could have and on top of that it worked great every and my employer offered a very good discount on the monthly bills (22% off). Because the phone had the removable smart card all you had to do was pop it out and put it in a new phone and it was up and running. We used to swap phones and trade. I had several different Nextel phones. For a while I even had a duable rubber coated phone I would use at work and then my sleek cool looking phone for the weekends (pretty ridiculous!)
Some of my other Nextels were

i87

i90

i530 (my work phone)

Sprint and Nextel had merged sometime in 2005 and I am not sure what happened but the service began to deteriorate. There would be areas in my neighborhood where the phone simply would not work---my kitchen and bedroom became a few examples. In the winter of late 2005/early 2006 there was a snow storm and the service was dead for the entire storm. When it came back on it was worse then ever. In February of 2006 I was not contractually obligated to Nextel so I decided to try out Verizon.



Verizon Wireless was awesome from day 1. The service was outstanding and the customer service was great. I stuck with the RAZR for just about 1 year then I was even eligible for an upgrade.I loved the RAZR but wanted something with more capabilities.


Smart phones were just coming to the forefront and one of the first user friendly, non PDA, was the ENV. I was able to buy this for very cheap so I upgraded in February 2007. I liked the phone and loved the service but soon the iPhone was coming! In June of 2007 the iPhone was released. I was under contract with Verizon until February 2007 and had no intentions of leaving. I saw the iPhone for the first time when a classmate showed me hers in January of 2008 and I was hooked.



The day my contract was up I bought an iPhone from AT&T. It cost $400 but I was working hard and able to sell my ENV and RAZR to almost cover the cost of the phone. My phone bill did go up a few bucks a month and as soon as I made my first call it dropped!. Unfortunately AT&T's service could not compare to Verizon. This was the battle the whole time. The phone was spectacular but the service was simply not good. When I purchased the phone I was "guaranteed" by the salesman that there would be no new generations iPhones for a very long time. Just about 4 months later the 3G came out. Reviews said with the 3G the service would be enhanced. In February of 2009 I was eligible to purchase the 3G at an upgraded discount price.



I did and in March of 2009 I bought the 3G iPhone but my bill went up even more money because they had new charges adding about $15 a month to my bill.  The service was a little better but still nothing like my Verizon service that never once dropped a call. I ended up losing my 3G phone while on vacation in August of 2010 and AT&T left me with limited options. By this time the 3G had been discontinued and was only offered an iPhone 3GS for $400 or an iPhone 4 for $600. I was only with AT&T because of the iPhone and was not interested in any other phone. I had a friend who had a Droid 1 from Verizon and I was very impressed so I ended up paying to get out of my contract and moved to back to Verizon.














So I ended back with Verizon  with the Droid X. A great phone with great service. Suddenly Verizon announced an agreement with Apple and all of a sudden it is here. I just can't justify getting an iPhone at this time though but I will. The way it's time I see the iPhone 5 coming out just as I am eligible for an upgrade!

It is amazing to see how the technology in phones have advanced in just a portion of my life. My current phone has more RAM, a larger hard drive, faster internet access, and a faster processor then the first computer I bought in 2001!