Someone on Twitter pointed out to me that the recently acquired Nexus S is the fourth phone I’ve owned in 2011, so I’ve decided to put together a list of every single phone I’ve owned in my relatively short life, starting at the beginning:

NOKIA 3310

My first phone. Everyone had one, and it cost a ridiculous amount of money, but was awesome when it was released. 

NOKIA 2600

It was pretty much a newer version of the 3310 but with something amazing: a colour screen.

Sony Ericsson P1

It was sort of a weird half smartphone half candybar phone with a really nice camera. I really liked it. 

MOTOROLA V3

I still love the design of this thing. 

Motorola L6

I went for yet another super thin Motorola, this time the L6. It’s not that much thicker than an iPhone 4, and this was five years ago. 

Motorola L7

Got bored of the L6 so picked up one of these instead. It didn’t last that long in my pocket. 

MOTOROLA V3 (BLACK)

Erm, yeah, I bought another one. This time in black. 

SONY ERICSSON C702

It was pretty much a Bond phone, waterproof and packing a ton of features. I also got an unlimited internet data plan with this; it basically started my love of smartphones. 

APPLE iPHONE 3G

Yep, I actually bought one of these when I was in Indonesia for a couple of months. It was a nice phone, and I still prefer this design to the newer 4/4S. 

BLACKBERRY CURVE 8900

I sold that iPhone at the end of my stay in Indonesia and got this when I returned home. I loved it, but it had its flaws. 

BLACKBERRY BOLD 9000

Simply put, this was one of the best phones I’ve ever owned. 

HTC HERO

I jumped on the Android bangwagon with the Hero. This was the phone that got me into Android, and I’ve been using the OS ever since. 

HTC LEGEND

The Hero was underpowered and I had no Orange reception in my house, so I cancelled my contract within the first month of owning the Hero and snapped up the newly released Legend on Vodafone. I absolutely adored this phone, and kept it for a whole year; it was that good. 

HTC INCREDIBLE S

I got my hands on the IS exactly a year to the day I picked up my Legend. To be honest, I was hyped up about this phone, but it disappointed. It had too many bugs, crashed a lot, and I felt HTC was going in the wrong direction with design. 

PALM PIXI PLUS

For a brief week or two, I actually got bored of Android (specifically HTC Sense) and picked up a Pixi Plus right after HP axed WebOS. I loved it, right up until the moment the screen broke. I can see why HP axed both Palm and WebOS. 

GOOGLE NEXUS S

Only been using my Nexus S for about a day at the time of writing, but I already love it, especially as it’s now running ICS :)

Well here we go, folks; it’s that time again when I’m looking for yet another phone. This time, it’s more of a ‘political’ thing rather than me specifically needing a Nexus S. After all, it will most certainly be a downgrade from my current phone (HTC’s Incredible S) in terms of specs. So why am I selling a high-end HTC for a one-year-old, rather cheap-feeling Samsung? 

The main reason I’m pretty sure I’m going to the Nexus S is software updates. I am sick of HTC cutting their customers off after eight months. My phone was released earlier this year and it won’t get an update to Ice Cream Sandwich. To me, that’s outrageous. One of the main problems with Android is the fact that manufacturers like to install custom UIs, which slows down the update process for certain devices, and in some cases prevents an update from being available. 

The logical choice of Android phone in this situation would be the Galaxy Nexus, but as I’m a broke student, the Nexus S will have to do. I can’t sell my Incredible S for much, so the cost of me selling it will cover the cost of a brand new Nexus S off Amazon perfectly. The Nexus S will get ICS within the next few months, and it’ll probably get the next release of Android after that (most likely another eighteen months away); this makes it the only future-proof phone that I can realistically consider buying. The only real issue I originally saw with the Nexus S replacing my current device was the lack of HD video capture on its five megapixel camera, but the amount of phone photography I do is minimal, and for decent shots I’ll just use my Fujifilm S1600. 

I’m also fed up of HTC Sense slowing my phone down; something that was previously aesthetically-pleasing for me has just turned into a CPU hog/graphical nightmare of a UI. Stock Android is so much faster, and the Nexus S also has some pretty powerful graphics processing power. 

So at the end of the day, I’m happy to slightly downgrade my device for something that I feel will last me longer, and that will give me less grief. My current phone is like a Ferrari - powerful, but has a lot of flaws; the Nexus S is more of an Audi R8 - a sensible, slick, and reliable alternative. As a daily driver, I’ll happily take the R8 over a Ferrari. 

Look out for my final decision on Twitter over the next few weeks. 

I like to get myself a new phone every year, and this year will be exception. I’ve spent months thinking about what I was going to get, and the time has come to choose the HTC Incredible S. While the Desire S is a nice device, its camera isn’t up to the standard of the Incredible, and its screen feels small in comparison. I went back to Carphone Warehouse today to check out the Incredible, and comparing it side-by-side to the Desire, Desire S, and Desire Z (much to the annoyance of the staff, lol) it stood out as the clear winner in my opinion. 

It’s decided; I’ll be ending my Legend’s contract at the very end of this month, picking up my Incredible, and selling my Legend to cover the cost of early exit. 

PS: I’ll be attending the HTC Roadshow event in Bristol on Tuesday 24th May; hit me up on Twitter if you want to meet me. 

Oh, here we go again. My ADD has kicked in, and I’m getting bored of my phone. I was planning to switch this summer to another HTC device, but I’ve recently had thoughts: I need a phone. 

I used to use a Blackberry 8900, which was my first smartphone, and I loved it for the most part. Sure, there were issues with it, like lack of internal memory and a relatively slow processor, but it was just right for what I needed it for. I only really switched to Android out of frustration; with hindsight, I probably should have stayed with Blackberry and starting using Android on a tablet. 

Primarily, I use my phone as a phone. That means I need it to text, call people, and email. Stuff like gaming, social networking, etc doesn’t really take priority. I also have a lot of friends who live abroad who I used to converse with via Blackberry Messenger, but now I’m finding that I talk to them less, as I have to typically Facebook message or email them. The plethora of features that is present in Android is starting to annoy me, as I simply don’t and won’t utilise Android’s full potential. 

Usually, if there’s a feature of our smartphone that we don’t like, we use it less. My HTC is a decent means of communication, but I talk on the phone and text far less, because it simply doesn’t do it as well as my Blackberry did. For me, my phone is a tool, and it just needs to do its job. I don’t need it to be a pocket computer; most of the things I use mobile internet browsing for is looking up shit, and browsing news headlines. Anything serious that requires a browser can wait until I’m at my computer. 

There are a few Blackberry Bold 9780s floating around on the Internet for around £300 - £350 SIM-free, and I’m considering simply keeping my contract running and adding a £5 per month BIS service to use with a Blackberry; in the long-run, it will be cheaper than terminating my contract early and picking up a (more expensive) HTC Incredible S. Sure, I’ll keep my HTC Legend and may even get a cheap SIM for it as I’ll still be using Android for my reviews and the like, but as an actual phone, nothing even comes close to a decent Blackberry. 

Feel free to leave me your thoughts below.