I went for it.  Years and years I lived without any personal phone.  Didn’t need it.  Nobody had them!   I started working at my first job, and they gave me a cellphone, a Nokia 6110.  Cool!  Monochrome screen, you could call someone and they would hear you, you could send text messages.  Awesome!  After about three years the phone seemed to die, so I gave it to my parents who still use it to this day.  I got a new one, a Nokia 6310i, because I liked the monochrome screen and the added functionality of being   able to play Pinball, instead of just Snake!  It had GPRS so that meant I could check the weather report anytime, for just a few bucks a kilobyte!  Two years later a new job offered me a new Sony k750i.  Oh my, a non-Nokia phone!  How would I cope!  I could even take pictures with it, or listen to the whole HHGTTG-radioplay on a very expensive 1GB Sony Memory Stick Duo!  And it had a color screen with an useable calendar and contacts list!

And then I knew it: I wanted it all!  I wanted… a smartphone!

Smartphones weren’t that smart, it turned out.  Or at least their designers weren’t that smart, I felt.  Smartphones could to one thing, or the other.  You could have em tell you how to follow the highway, but were badly equipped at following the Information Highway.  Or you could surf on the internet at speeds carriers paid lots of cash for a few years ago, but have no clue how to get to Surfer’s Beach.  Some were more of a camera with a phone attached, or gamepads which you could use to dial people.  Some were very business-focused, but they would look like a very blocky erection in your pants, because of their design.  No model had it all.  Even the iPhone lacked features, although EDGE seems reasonable and the interface is s-l-i-c-k.

So I hold off buying one.  The 6310i still worked, right?  Right?

But I kept looking.  HTC had some models with flip-out keyboards, and I felt I needed some sort of keyboard for easy access to all the applications.  I wanted to load up some pricing info on it, and maybe develop some self-syncing Mobile SQL Server-based applications.  I wanted to get the full 3G, because I didn’t feel like buying a new phone in 2 years to stay with the times.  I also wanted a good camera, capable of shooting a bit of video too.  I wanted memory space too, to save up a bunch of MP3’s to play in the car.  I wanted good syncing capabilities, and even the possibility to surf the internet through 3G or wireless networks.  I wanted a phone which was also equipped with a GPS chip and antenna, to have some sort of satnav available, whenever and where ever I went.

But none had them all.

Then HTC announced their “Touch” when I was still looking at their “Kaiser” model which *might* have a GPS chip and antenna.  I lost track of smartphones for a while after the summer of 2007, until I checked again somewhere in January 2008 for an update, and noticed HTC had released something called the “Touch Cruise“.  Basically a slick looking Windows Mobile 6 machine with the look and feel of the Touch, and eh… some hardware modifications.  It has the 3G, it has the 3Mpixel camera, it has a memory slot, it has wifi, it has the touch screen, …

So, this one had it pretty much all.

But it was expensive.  So I shouldn’t buy it.

I should buy it when it’s cheaper.  At or below 500€ sounds reasonable.

2 clicks later, I ended up on a web shop who offered it for 450€ish.

Shoot!

The 6130i retired a few days later.