In terms of a phone, smart-features irrelevant.

For me it’s got to be the StarTAC, with the slim battery of course.

I was a big fan of the little

Pre-smartphone days, I loved my little 6510. It was an 8310 (successor to the 8210 above) for all practical purposes, but with a slightly more subdued colour scheme I believe aimed at the corporate market.

I never had one, but the 6310i is one of the best phones Nokia ever made. Battery life of about a year and a half, and an outsized antenna array that could get a signal where most others couldn’t.

Nokia 3210, 3310 or 3410.

Nokia 6310 hands down.

10 days battery. It was a badass too – ran it over on my bike twice, dropped it down wooden stairs.

And snakes. Nuff said.

sony ericsson w800
Still got one in the drawer somewhere. Turned it on after it’s been off for 3 years and the battery was still on 2 bars!

Nokia 5210. Kept charged with a PAYG SIM on a different network to my main phone. Just in case…

The 6310i is one of the best phones Nokia ever made.

Agree. It was my favorite non-smart phone. Still have it a drawer somewhere, while most others have been sold/traded in.

The SE W810i was also a good little phone. Mine proved to be very robust.

Had a little Panasonic on Cellnet. It was tiny and is still the smallest phone I’ve ever owned. I sent an SMS saying “Hello” to my friend Jilly (who was also on Cellnet) a few months before the SMS function had been advertised. I think it cost around 50p when I looked at my bill.

I liked the 8210 but although larger in footprint the 6610 just one as it was thinner. Colour screen was pointless though.

Good point, the 6310i was an amazingly well-built phone. Felt like the pinnacle of build quality/features at the time.

It wasn’t clam-shell though 😉

Nokia 5110 for me…

…with Kick as the ringtone 8)

Nokia 6822. I was a beast at texting. Plus it was a meaningful performance changing to “text mode”.

Either my first, tougher than anything!

Or this one, foolishly given to Mrs CFH. Miles better than the S4 I replaced it with.

Razr, original of course.

the 6310i was an amazingly well-built phone

I think a large part of the quality build feel of this phone was due to the lack of changeable fashion covers that were so prevalent at that time.

I never had one, but the 6310i is one of the best phones Nokia ever made. Battery life of about a year and a half, and an outsized antenna array that could get a signal where most others couldn’t.

Yep, got one the first month they came out (justified with my Boss as I’d taken on Europe as well as the UK), I used one (had 4 over time) until 2010 – with a Nokia E71, which I still use.

More love for the Nokia 8210 here too.

But one phone I would love right now is the über-simple John’s Phone

Agreed about the 6310i. Legendary phone.

Had a Nokia 5210 (builders phone – in fact I had several) for robustness, could be, and were, dropped and bounced without being affected. Initially had the 8210 as well, with a soft case – went in a pocket on the Camelbak.

Nothing since has quite been the same t my mind, some lacklustre Nokia and now a 4S..

In many ways, the little Nokia 8210, it was a nice pocket size, and the case could be replaced cheaply, and custom painted.
For longevity, the SE K750i which I had, then gave to a mate. He was using it up until last weekend, when I gave him my old iPhone 3G, it must have been getting on for eight or nine years old. Crap charging system, though.
More recently, my iPhone 4. Still using it, mainly as an iPod, with a 3 SIM in it for using Shazam, but I just love its solid, chunky feel, there’s nothing really flimsy about it, just a nice little black slab of tech.

Stupid proof! 😀

It wasn’t clam-shell though

Only Gibbs can pull off the clam-shell flip and still look cool 😀

Only Gibbs can pull off the clam-shell flip and still look cool

8) 😆

I had that waterproof one! Was good fun putting it in pints and what not. The minutes flew by. I liked my 8310, although the 8210 seemed the biggest change.

There’ve been differently good phones. I guess the iPhone 3G for really changing things. I had a Nokia N70 before, so was used to ‘smart’ phones, the iPhone was something else.

meh. my current htc one s. phones didn’t become properly useful until they did interweb stuff properly…

I still have a 6310i with four batteries that I used regularly on expeditions and big days out with groups, and still comes out on river paddling days. It has been on the bottom of the river Tay, I dropped it mid call to my boss, I reached dow, picked it up and finished my call and carried on. Brilliant signal finding ability as well.

For awesomeness…

and

I had the this exact model / colour. Great phone:

+1 for the 5110 (5111 then… I’ll get ma coat)

bullet proof & simple. Still got one somewhere plus all of the in-car installation kit. Used to have several pukka nokia hands free kits I’d been given for nowt, I fitted it into my Land Rovers and when I was going anywhere really filthy I’d swap the sim from my “posh” phone into the 5110. Therefore I wasn’t too bothered if the phone got dropped into a puddle lost etc.

The other advantage was that the 5110 had an external antenna socket so when fitted it into the cradle you got a hell of a lot better signal when you were in a remote area – pretty sure the box of tricks had a signal amplifier – you could have no signal as a portable yet 3-4 bars when in the cradle. i don’t care what the manufacturers say about internal antennas, when you are in remote rural areas there is no substitute for metal in the air on the roof of a vehicle for a better signal.

I WISH that someone produced a ruggedised non-smart phone that still featured an antenna socket.

i had a ericson T28, liked it too

Motorola 8700

Been known to survive falls from 3 stories.

But having said that, my current Motorola Milestone 2 is annoyingly persistent, surviving many soakings, falling out of my pocket onto tarmac at 30mph, and getting run over.

I think Ive had nearly everyone of the phones so far posted!
Nokia 5110 was my first
Then the T28
a 5210
a 6310
an 8210 at some point
then into the world of “Smartphones” coming to an HTC Legend – solid little chappie.

At their time most were great things to have.
And of course I think my current phone (Nexus 4) is the nuts.

Its amazing where the tech has come to. Anyone remember things like this Handspring (I had one)
– couldnt do much, but could do more than my 5110. Now, my phone can do more than one of my old desktop computers that my dad is still using!

Always liked this one very slim and a metal body. I always got a Nokia upgrade as they were pretty fool proof to use.

Can I fourth the Sony Ericsson T28. Tough as old boots, small, and when you program the voice dial for the taxi firm as “beam me up Scotty” in conjunction with the flip activated voice dial you could entertain yourself when needing a taxi from the pub!

The Nexus 4 I am using now destroys it in every department other than battery life and size though…

Galaxy Note 2 that got destroyed when I got knocked off my bike by a car.

Gotta say I’m surprised by the number of technological luddites.

Motorola razr in black with the polished keypad.

Lovely slim phone with a great keypad.

Other than that the Sony Ericsson camera phones were good too

I can’t believe how many of those I’ve owned. I guess that’s what happens when contracts were only 12 months long.

Anyway, big fan of 8210 but my best ever was Sony Ericsson w810i. Brilliant little phone. Bomb proof, but not washing machine proof sadly as my wife found out after I gave it to her and she left it in her pocket. I ‘upgraded’ to a W950i which was total garbage and really buggy.

Galaxy Note 2 that got destroyed when I got knocked off my bike by a car.

Gotta say I’m surprised by the number of technological luddites.

We’re talking “non smart” phones Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam