My Favourite Nokia: Ricky Cadden
Today I'm delighted to bring you the first real 'My Favourite Nokia' post (I'm not counting my own) and it's rather fitting that it's been submitted by former contributor, Ricky Cadden...
Today I'm delighted to bring you the first real 'My Favourite Nokia' post (I'm not counting my own) and it's rather fitting that it's been submitted by former contributor, Ricky Cadden (search top right to see posts about him and by him!). If you take a look at Ricky's very early career listing on LinkedIn, you'll see a notable entry there for Symbian-Guru which he ran for almost four years from 2006. So he's had a lot of experience with Nokia devices. Fast forward to today and Ricky is a high flying senior executive in the States. Right Ricky, thank you so much for opening things and I am about to sit down with a cup of coffee to read the following...
Over to you Ricky:
I can't pick just one favorite Nokia - I actually have three. Sorry mate.
The 6230
6230 - the first EDGE phone, and the first phone I ever bought twice. Back then, I used to go through 2-3 phones per year, constantly moving to the latest and greatest. Then out comes this tiny little powerhouse - 1MP camera, EDGE data connection, and it fits easily in any pocket. Amazing. Had one, sold it, then missed it so much I bought another one.
Side Story: Back in the days of HowardForums.com (aka HoFo), which was the leading Nokia forum at the time, it was "a thing" to get different firmwares flashed on these phones. AT&T sold the 6230, but if you got unbranded firmware flashed to it, you could unlock some features/capabilities (can't for the life of me recall what they were now). Anyways, there was a guy on HoFo called "Chippery9" who was offering to do this flash for you - it required specific hardware. Most people were physically mailing their phones to him, he'd flash it, and then mail it back. As you do with a ~$500 phone in the early 2000s, right?Anyways, after messaging him a bit, I realized that he lived near me - in the same city. So I arranged to meet him and let him do the flash in person. I'll never forget, we met up in a movie theatre parking lot, and my girlfriend (wife, now) couldn't believe that I just handed my cellphone through the car window to a stranger.
Of course it was fine, he brought it back, all was well. A few weeks later, I got a DM on HoFo from the mods - apparently what Chippery9 was doing was extremely illegal and Nokia wasn't super happy about him using their hardware (likely impolitely acquired) to do this. Crazy.
The N79
N79 - I don't know why I loved the N79 so much. It was a simple candybar phone with mediocre specs at the time. On paper, it was an N95 without the slider and with a smaller screen. Most reviewers did their thing and shipped it back. Not me. I fell in love with this little phone. Perhaps it's because it was so simple, so unassuming. It also came in an all-black "Music Edition" which was just plain delicious. I wish that I'd kept one.
The N95-3
I list those two first because the last is so boring, so obvious. It's the N95-3. Yes, the -3 is important - after a seemingly endless stream of Nseries devices that only supported European 3G networks, this was the first that supported North American 3G bands - a HUGE deal. There were rumors that it was originally destined for Cingular, but they wanted to kneecap it by removing WiFi and locking down other parts, and Nokia told them to fly a kite. Either way, it was the first Nseries that felt like it was actually built *for me*. I bought it day one with my own money, and I still have that exact same unit. The slide is still snappy and solid, and it's just a fantastic piece of hardware. I thought, at the time, that it would be the forefather of a whole rash of U.S. 3G-supporting Nseries, and in some ways, it was, though Nokia never managed to gain the foothold in the U.S. that it had elsewhere, for an array of reasons.
My N95-3 is still set up as though I was actively using it. Gravity, Mobbler, and Handy TaskMan are still installed, along with the custom Camo theme that was made for me. When it boots up, it tries to sync with ... some long-forgotten server. But I still love it.
I still keep both my 6230 and N95-3, along with chargers for them. They usually rest easily in a box in my office, but it's nice to pull them out sometimes and remember back when hardware was fun and interesting, instead of just slabs of glass.
Ah Ricky, your text is really inspiring me to get on to eBay and find myself an N95 8GB... (and I wonder what Claude Code could do to reinvigorate the Symbian experience?)
Thank you very much Ricky. Those were the days.
If you'd like to submit a similar piece to Ricky, please send me a photo of your favourite device(s) along with 400-500 words and I'll publish here --> ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.