Favorite phone from any time

[shadow0460]

Pick a favorite phone or two. Any time period goes, smart phone, dumb phone, party line, etc.
My favorites go to the basic rotary desk phone because the finger stop was grounded and made for one heck of a radio antenna and to the Galaxy Music Duos for it's cigarette lighter size and self contained stereo speakers.

 

[ZGBox]

For me, it was this one (at least as far as smartphones go): The Nokia 808

I bought it almost 10 years ago and it was so tough, incredibly well built, never let me down and it was so special for it's incredible 41mpx camera! In 2012!
It was almost completely useless though, since it wasn't an android phone and it's operating system was so behind the times but I made it work up until 2017.
And I still have it!

The screen's cracked and I absolutely thrashed it but it works really well and it still produces beautiful photos!

 

[Populuxe]

A mid-century design classic, the Ericsson Ericofon.

 

[Daz555]

The phone that impressed me the most at the time of release is the Nokia 6210.

 

[Nexus]

Pick a favorite phone or two. Any time period goes, smart phone, dumb phone, party line, etc.
My favorites go to the basic rotary desk phone because the finger stop was grounded and made for one heck of a radio antenna and to the Galaxy Music Duos for it's cigarette lighter size and self contained stereo speakers.

I had a Galaxy Music as my first phone, the speakers were about the only thing I liked about it

I think I used a universal root method on it though, and it got me into Android tweaking. My next phone was probably my favourite:

Sony Xperia SP - released with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, updated to 4.3 Jelly Bean (with a KitKat update unfortunately canned), 1GB RAM that felt like it had half that amount but most importantly...

An RGB LED notification LED that doubled as a music LED

I had this during high-school, and even people not into phones thought the light strip was cool. The canned KitKat update also got me into custom ROMs, and got it all the way from 4.3 -> 4.4 -> 5.0 -> 5.1 -> 6.0, before I sold it. I spent days flashing new ROMs and tweaks, trying to squeeze as much performance as I could out of it. Ppkemon Go was what made me finally give up and upgrade, after struggling with the RAM management problems that even custom kernels couldn't seem to fix.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Microsoft Lumia 950XL.
Came out in 2015, was one of the first mobile devices to carry Windows 10 Mobile, it had a great form factor, and incredible specifications for the time. QHD AMOLED display, the top Snapdragon 810 of the time, stunning camera with Zeiss optics, OIS, triple RGB flash, 4k video. It had a user replaceable battery, USB-C fast charging, iris scanning tech.

It was ahead of its time in many respects, much of its spec sheet was uncommon at the time and is now considered essential. Windows 10 mobile was great, though it had its flaws, and it was just a great device to use daily.

 

[Dennisch]

Sony K800i. Excellent camera phone for the time, 2007.

 

[Greycap]

Sony K800i. Excellent camera phone for the time, 2007.

Can't deny - I had one myself, and still use a Sony to this day.

However, the one I remember with the greatest fondness was what the K800i replaced for me, the Siemens M65. While perhaps not the best in anything it was a very solid phone that cost less than a half of the similarly equipped Nokias and Ericssons of the time.

 

[Nexus]

Microsoft Lumia 950XL.
Came out in 2015, was one of the first mobile devices to carry Windows 10 Mobile, it had a great form factor, and incredible specifications for the time. QHD AMOLED display, the top Snapdragon 810 of the time, stunning camera with Zeiss optics, OIS, triple RGB flash, 4k video. It had a user replaceable battery, USB-C fast charging, iris scanning tech.

It was ahead of its time in many respects, much of its spec sheet was uncommon at the time and is now considered essential. Windows 10 mobile was great, though it had its flaws, and it was just a great device to use daily.

A mate of mine had a Lumia 510 or 520 (and another with a 925 I believe) - Windows Phone at the time was very snappy, and put even high-end Androids (bar the ones with lighter skins, i.e. Sony's, HTC's and Nexus devices) to shame. If it weren't for major app developers shunning the platform (Snapchat shutting down third-party apps, and Google's anti-competitive behaviour) and Microsoft shafting Windows Phone 7 users (not allowing them to update to Windows Phone 8), we might still have it today.

The Live Tiles interface also worked really well on mobile - widgets in Android have always been powerful, though I'd say they usually cater to power users. Anecdotally, barely anyone I know actually uses them (or even realise that they exist).