I always loved smart devices. Recently I’ve had a nostalgic moment when I stumbled upon a few of the devices collected over time and piled into a drawer in my garage. I thought it might be funny to make a list of the devices I have used over time and what I liked about them. Here it goes.

Alcatel One Touch Com

This was the first smart mobile device I ever had. I bought this I think in 1998 and probably used it for about 2-3 years. At that time it drew curious looks from everyone. I have used a fancy belt clip that allowed it to sit nicely on the side and expose it in all its beauty.

What I liked about it:

It was the fist device that I used to have a very good address book – a huge step forward from the primitive address book in the (then very popular) mobile phones where you only got name  and phone number. This one could have several numbers for a name, email and proper address.

It comes with an easy to use Calendar and Notes applications. It also included a pretty simple Mail application. I think it also had some games, but I don’t remember what they were.

You could synchronise with a computer Address Book, Calendar, Mail and Notes. Using 2G (was 1998) you could access mail over the network, something stunning for that time although at a mere 9600 bps (hey, at that time I hardly could access dial up at more than 28,800 bps).

The battery life was pretty decent with about 3 days between charges (with the current smart phones that require charging every day people seem to have forgotten the days when phones worked for a whole week).

What I didn’t like about it:

Mail application was pretty basic. It did not support Microsoft Exchange servers, nor IMAP. Also did not support SSL.

The antenna was sticking out and always I had to worry about not knocking it over. But at that time most of the mobile phones exhibited this kind of design.

The display was monochorme (kind of greenish…) with a nasty backlit. It used a resistive touchscreen – the kind that looks like a sandwich of plastic foils with some jelly in between – so when you used the stylus the screen bent in. The display was protected by a glass cover that could be flipped down and back. As much at that protected the delicate screen it looked pretty cheap.

Next time: Psion Revo.