Mobile History (P1): Samsung D500
Like many of my other possessions, I have always tried my best to preserve my mobile phones in proper condition … at very least until I am willing to replace them. As such, it’s not surprising to me when I look back and recall how each of my phones had lasted me a good few years of service.
(and so starts my recollection of past phones)
The Samsung D500 was my first phone and was bought with the intention of “doing great things”.
Back in the days, the D500 was known for its extensive list of features and functionality. I remember clearly how I was exhilarated by the thought of 96MB of shared memory. Although it lacked wifi, the D500 still came with bluetooth (v1.1) and infrared.
Samsung, known for their quality cameras, left D500 competitors in the dust by shipping the D500 with a 1.3MP camera! (drool)
Finally, the D500 supported MIDP 2.0 … which ultimately convinced me that this was my (cellular) destiny.
Like in any relationship, there were a few ups-and-downs:
- The MIDP 2.0 implementation was half-baked and seemed to miss some crucial libraries required to do cool things
- I think I managed to find almost every GUI-related bug in the D500 which caused it to reboot (I also enjoyed the way the D500 would reboot and bypass the SIM PIN-entry screen, such that it would appear as if nothing had occurred)
- I had to search for the D500E firmware (released in another country) in order to flash my phone and be able to achieve EDGE speeds. While the speed improvement was not really noticeable, the functionality should have been included in the default firmware on my phone
All in all, the D500 did seem to be virtually bullet-proof since it had survived numerous incidents where other phones would probably snap into pieces. The durable D500 lasted 3 years before I let her free to continue her journey with someone else.