HAVING a phone is so easy now with unlimited plans on monthly contracts, but it wasn’t always so. Here’s how hard it was when the 3310 was all the rage:
Topping up credit in a shop
Most early phones were Pay As You Go and you could only top up a fiver or a tenner or a time. This meant it ran out as soon as you’d made a couple of longish phone calls or sent a few texts. Conversations were therefore kept brief as you had to physically go to a shop and purchase a card to add more credit. Seems bizarre and old fashioned now, like the Victorians having to buy fresh food every day because fridges hadn’t been invented.
Searching for a signal
Without the proliferation of masts and saturation coverage experienced with 4G and 5G, 2G and 3G phones often failed to connect at all. Calls were frequently cut short and mobile users were often seen waving their phones in the air like salutations to a digital sky god, shouting ‘I’ve got two bars!’
Counting texts
Early mobile plans usually came with limited call minutes and texts, meaning you often wouldn’t hear from someone for two weeks because they’d used everything up and had to wait until a new month started. Texts had a ridiculously low character limit which necessitated the invention of text speak, something some people still annoyingly cling onto even now they’re able to write multiple paragraphs on WhatsApp.
Paying through the nose for ringtones
The phone you have today probably has 100 different ringtone choices, but you haven’t bothered to change it from the old fashioned telephone sound that was the factory preset. However, 20 years ago you would happily pay £4 to get the Crazy Frog ringtone, believing it would mark you out as a funny and unique person. As did every single other dickhead in your class at school.
Tiny screens with crap games
Although sturdy and functional, Nokias and other early mobiles had tiny green screens displaying a fistful of pixels, and the only game available was Snake. This seems a bit pathetic given that it’s possible to play Call of Duty in real-time on current devices, but on the other hand you weren’t so obsessed with your mobile that you developed an attachment disorder and had a nervous breakdown if you couldn’t find it for 30 seconds.