Fairphone FP3 (2019)
When I first saw this phone, I thought: this is ridiculous. Also, I can get a phone with similar specs for half the price. Yet somehow, I wanted to buy it. It was an itch and it wouldn't go away. Love makes blind. It was so cursed, it cursed me. Or materialism did? idk. I intially wanted a cheap low-end phone again, but they seem to suck these days.
The good stuff: good battery life, clean android with 5 years of updates, components incl. battery replaceable(!), great IO(3.5 mm jack, NFC, SD & dual sim, gyroscope), boots fast, is snappy. The bad stuff: bulky, even with big hands, expensive, just like the case, camera is too sharp, shutter lag(WTF, is this 2013? gcam fixes this though), fingerprint sensor is capricious during hot/humid weather, being bombarded by google(damn you android), speaker can be akward, screen way too bright in darkness, it already feels outdated. Is 64 GB internal storage enough? Will it still be snappy after 5 years?
I sure was impressed how technology has improved the last few years. Even the front camera is far better than the back camera of the Moto E2. In some aspects I am a little dissapointed(what did I expect though), but overall I am satisfied, but I am not sure if I can recommend this phone, especially how expensive it is. It sure is unique and a niche. It probably has a cult following.
Update 2021-09-15: A few days ago there was an update, and it seems that the screen can be less bright now????!?! That's nice, a problem patched. Though autobrightness can be a bit hit or miss.
Update 2023-05-09: I was chilling with 3 friends in my room, and they were putting on music, so I pass them the aux cord so the music can be played on the nice stereo. But none of them had a phone with a 3.5mm connector, and none of them had an adapter. I was nearly perplexed with this inconvenience. So my FP3 does have a port, so I played music, but even the newer fairphone doesn't. I am honestly not looking forward to the future.
Update 2024-11-07: Yesterday night it just died out of nowhere. :(
Moto E2 (2015)
This is a cheap phone I love, huge bang for buck. It has a great battery life, it has stock android, pretty fast phone. You can expand the memory with an SD card, and it is sturdy. However, it has no gyroscope, and only 8 GB internal storage, which is a pain to manage: this is the main point it ages, along with being stuck on Android 6. This is the primary reason why I upgraded. The GPU is terrible and the screen doesn't have a high resolution, but I don't mind that, it's barely noticeable. It has a 4.5 inch screen, an ideal size for my big hands. There's a front camera but it sucks. The main camera is pretty neat considering the price, though for some reason its aspect ratio is 16:9 and not 3:2, which I didn't notice until I got the FP3. It has 4G LTE(aka "3.9G"), but frankly I never use mobile data. Irreplacable battery, nearly impossible to open up. Relatively long battery life compared to other smartphones of this era. It has micro USB and a 3.5mm jack. All in all a phone I really enjoyed using! Not sure if anything could ever top this considering the price.
Also, this phone still has radio, which came in handy when I didn't have internet and wanted to be informed how the situation with a coming storm would develop. Why doesn't the FP3 have this?
Nokia N97 (2009)
This is a special one. The comfort of this slidable keyboard is the greatest I have ever experienced, I don't think you can get a this good keyboard anywhere today: a full QWERTY keyboard. Not quite a smartphone, but it's getting there(it runs symbian): you can run many applications. It has a better camera(in some aspects) than the Moto E (2015), with a flashlight. The touch screen seems to be resistive; it sucks ass by modern standards, I never quite liked it: it seems the best to be operated with your nails. It has 32 GB internal storage, what the crap. Beautiful backlit keys. I never seemed to get the wifi working, and it can be a bit sluggish sometimes. Battery in 10 seconds replacable. Fairly sturdy. 3.5 mm jack + mico USB.
Later I got the iPod touch, and I jailbroke it and put whatsapp on it, because that was what people seemed to use. The N97 had whatsapp capabilties, but I couldn't get it working on Wi-Fi. So I used them both, one for whatsapp(and other stuff), the other one for calling and texting.
The iPod touch gave me mixed feelings. While applications and touch screen were vastly superior, its screen was also very fragile, it shattered once. On top of that, the home button stopped working after a while. And it also got gradually slower, to an annoying degree. Something which I do not understand, no other phone did this.
Nokia 2323 classic black (2009)
This is a basic phone. It calls. You can SMS. Heck, if it wasn't for the color screen, it could've been from early 2000s. It has bluetooth 2.0, something I used with delight to exchange pictures and stuff with friends. No camera. Some people like the 12-button keyboard, but I disagree. While the buttons are nice and great for entering numbers, it is not nice for texting. No wifi, but it does have 2G. Comes with snake, of course. Very sturdy. Easily replacable battery with long life(week+), something modern smartphones can't live up to(but of course they can do much more). A... mini jack? Definitely smaller than 3.5mm. Another mysterious port(picture of this), and a charging port for the 5v 350ma charger. Thank whoever to thank for USB charging, which this phone does not provide, I despise these weird charging ports, although I must say a barrel jack is superior for charge-only purposes. But USB both for information and charging is much better, of course.
Currently I use a similar phone as my alarm clock. I think I have to charge it monthly, which is impressive.
