My Phones

Ericsson A2618

This black device was my first mobile phone. I got it in 2001. I remember reading an SMS-based news service on its tiny screen during high school lunch breaks after September 11.

It was a bulky but durable device. Once, I remember, I was playing basketball in the schoolyard. When I jumped up to take a shot, it slipped out of the inside pocket of my jacket and hit the concrete with a loud smack. It didn’t even get a scratch.

One day, sitting by the piano, I tried to figure out the notes of the Imperial March from Star Wars so I could type them in as letters into the ringtone editor. I didn’t use it as a ringtone. I was simply curious whether I could do it. I never figured out how to control the rhythm, but I got most of the notes right, I guess.

This phone later became my father’s first mobile phone.

📱 It was my primary phone for 2.5 years. ⌛ It served more than 5 years.

Nokia 5510

I got this one for X-mas from my parents in 2003. It was awsome. There was a hidden 3310 inside it. The phone featured a full keyboard and the iconic Snake game.

It also had 64 MB internal storage as part of its media player feature. But you could use the internal memory just like any USB stick if you carried a cable. Back then, I wrote short stories and carried my drafts as Word documents in my pocket. I could work on them anywhere, way before the Google Docs was even invented.

I also used the phone as a voice recorder with an external mic for interviews I made for the school paper.

I loved this phone. I even joined the Nokia Care program, for cheaper service fees. It came with a cool plastic membership card with my name on it. Too bad I threw it away a few years later. I had no idea I’d end up working for the company one day.

📱 2.5 years ⌛ 5 years

Nokia 6800 I.

After having a QWERTY phone, there was no way I'd go back to multi-tap SMS typing. In 2006, I bought my first 6800 second-hand, complete with all its accessories in the box.

It was a Symbian phone with a color display and white backlight. You could load custom wallpapers onto it, and I even installed a Sudoku game.

I loved it how a traditional mobile phone could transform into a comfortable text-writing device with its dead-simple mechanism whenever I was writing SMS messages or taking notes. No fragile hidden cables to worry about.

📱 2 years ⌛ at least 3 years (more if it was sold after the theft, I didn't know how to blacklist it)

Nokia 6800 II.

In 2008, I was robbed, and the thief took my phone along with my bag. By then it was already an old model, so I could buy another one cheaply second-hand. It wasn’t exactly the same. It was much more worn. The screen was scratched, there was cracked near the hinge, and the screen’s color temperature had a yellowish tint. But it was still pretty awesome.

I still have it in my drawer.

📱 5 years ⌛ at least 7 years

Nokia 2760

I got this flip phone as company phone in late 2008. It had a camera, but I've never used it. My primary device was still my 6800, and I didn't need a camera.

📱 2 years ⌛ 3.5 years

Nokia 3110 Classic

This model replaced the 2760 as a company phone in 2010. I only used it for company calls and still used my 6800 for everything else.

📱 4 years ⌛ at least 4 years (if it was not reused as company phone)

Samsung Galaxy Ace

The Ace was my first smartphone. I got it for X-mas in 2013. I remember, my first app was Sky Map. Mobile gaming was never my thing.

It was a sturdy little phone, not too fast, but unbreakable. Its size was perfect and its rubber back gave it a great grip.

Back then, Android seemed free and fair. I trusted Google. That’s something I feel completely ashamed of now. They seemed like the good guys, promoting openness in contrast to their arrogant competitors. Either the temptation of power and money corrupted them, or they were rotten from the start. In the end, no one cares, and it makes no difference today.

I also tried out some unofficial Android ROMs on my Ace, like CyanogenMod.

Although it had only a single core, I also used it in my BOINC cluster. It served less then the other phones because there were no compatible work units for it after a while. Eventually it was donated for reuse.

📱 3 years ⌛ at least 7 years (if it could not been reused)

Nokia Lumia 625

On my first day at Nokia, I received a Nokia phone as a company device. It was awesome. It had almost zero useful apps in the store, but I loved the tile based system. I still think that it held a lot of untapped potential. It’s a shame that, as usual, Microsoft tried to force its Windows mobile OS through with influence rather than brains.

While the iPhone championed elitism and Android (at the time) embraced openness, Microsoft spent years unable to figure out how to attract developers and users.

The company recollected this device after I got my next phone.

📱 2 years ⌛ 2 years

Xiaomi Redmi 3S

A couple of years later, I had the chance to choose a new company phone as a benefit. I could either pick a device from the company catalog for free or buy my own and get reimbursed up to a hundred euros. The Redmi 3S cost around €87, and it was impressive. It had large-capacity battery, four high-performance CPU cores, four energy-saving ones, dual-SIM capability, a streamlined UI, and a metal casing for excellent heat dissipation. It was my first phone with a fingerprint reader which you could even use for scrolling.

At the time, Xiaomi was just an interesting new start-up, still about carving a name for itself with a great value-to-price ratio. Later they lost my trust completely.

I really liked this phone, even though I didn't use it for too long.

📱 6 months ⌛ 4.5 years

Vernee Thor

One day, my partner at the time had her Xperia break, and we needed a new phone quickly. We had little money to spend, and among the budget phones the Vernee Thor had impressive reviews on reliable sites. Even better than the Redmi 3S and it cost the same. And the delivery time was just two days, not three weeks as it would have been with the 3S.

The reviews weren’t just mistaken. It was by far the worst phone I’ve ever used. Random parts of the screen didn't detect any touches, including the status bar on the top and parts of the keyboard.

She didn't have the patience to deal with this sorry excuse for a phone, so I offered to swap phones with her until the next payday, so we could buy a proper one.

I sold it for fraction of its original price to an Android developer to use as a test phone.

📱 2 weeks ⌛ probably less than 1 year

Xiaomi Redmi 4X

This phone had the same internal hardware as the 3S with a slightly smaller screen and size. The speakers were positioned differently, and it was made from black aluminum instead of matte silver magnesium alloy.

Since it was pretty much the same as the other phone, and she didn't want to move her data again, she kept the 3S and I used this. I used this phone a lot. I also began to use it for BOINC grid computing. It could only solve CPU projects but could use all 8 cores and thanks to its good heat dissipation it didn't overheat. I could also use it as a hand warmer in winter.

I also replaced its stock Android with a custom ROM for better performance, improved security, and longer battery-life.

Later when I had the Nokia 7.1, I added this phone to my computing cluster. I had its battery replaced during the COVID-19 lockdown to keep it in working shape. My cousin also used it too for a couple of weeks while her phone was being repaired. To this day I still use it for a spare SIM in the family.

📱 2.5 years ⌛ 8 years and still counting

Samsung Galaxy Note

I posted on the company bulletin board that I was looking for old phones to use for scientific projects. One of my coworkers contributed this phone to my cluster. After replacing the stylus and getting a new battery, this device it was good as new.

Although it had only 2 CPU cores, it was a reliable device. I applied a battery tweak to all the devices in the cluster to prevent them from continuously charging, even if they were plugged in the whole time. With this simple trick this device worked hard reliably for years. When I shut down the BOINC cluster, I donated it to a project that repurposed old devices to help detect illegal deforestation in rainforests.

🔬 It was part of my BOINC cluster for 4 years ⌛ at least 5 years

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Plus

I bought this phone real cheap from another coworker for my cluster. With four cores it did its fair share of the work for years. It was donated to the rainforest project too.

🔬 4 years ⌛ at least 5 years

HMD Nokia 7.1

This device was my next phone after the 4X. It served as both personal and company phone. It performed well and had a decent camera unit that handled dark areas and nighttime photos surprisingly well.

However, the phone was too large for my taste. It also had glass covered backside, so I had to clean it more often and handle it more carefully than my other phones. I've never cracked or broken any of my phones, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Compared to metal-bodied phones, this design felt like a major step backward. The glass back made it slide on some surfaces, and the heat dissipation was also poor. I couldn't even use it for BOINC research.

📱 2.5 years ⌛ 4.5 years

HMD Nokia X10

I got my next phone in 2022. For a long time, I used it for as personal device too, and I still use it as my company phone. It isn't as high-performing as the 7.1 was, and its camera is also worse. But I use it for 4 years now, and it works fine. Even the battery life is still great.

This device had a perfectly centered, preinstalled screen protector! Frankly, why is it not an industry standard?

📱 3 years ⌛ 4 years and still counting

Samsung Galaxy S24

I used it as a company phone for 9 months while I was working for another company.

I liked its small size, and both the camera unit and the screen was amazing. But it was my first phone since my Galaxy Ace that had serious compass issues. I had to recalibrate it roughly every 5 minutes. Even when it worked, it still showed the wrong direction by 90 degrees. I didn’t expect this from a flagship phone.

Maybe it was just an issue with this specific unit, not a widespread problem with the entire series.

📱 9 months ⌛ at least 9 months

Fairphone 5

When I started to work for Nokia in Finland, I got back to my X10 instead of ordering a new phone to avoid waste.

I got the Fairphone 5 for X-mas 2025. It meant a lot to me to move away from Google's spyware integrated into Android itself. Now it's my private phone, while I kept the X10 to run all the Microsoft apps I need for work.

The display is beautiful, the cameras are okay, and I like its size and metal frame. I've also tried a couple of different OS-es on it. I plan to write another post of my experiences with them.

📱 since Dec 2025 ⌛ since Dec 2025

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📱 Average usage time: 2 years 8 months (not counted here: 3S, Thor, S4, Note, Fairphone 5)

⌛ Average service time: 5 years 4 months (not counted here: Thor, S24, Fairphone 5)