Motorola A835

Here’s Motorola’s A835, my first-ever experience with a 3G phone. And boy, did it ever suck. My then-girlfriend and I rented a pair of them from a Vodafone kiosk at Tokyo’s Narita airport in January, 2006. The one in the photo is a 3-branded dummy, in case you wondering.

Despite being unlocked and able to accept my Fido SIM card, I couldn’t get this thing to use data or even make phone calls. Best I could do was send SMS. In the midst of the world’s most advanced mobile phones this was fairly humiliating.

The browser didn’t end up making a connection. It never did.

The A835 was good for one thing: it gave me an opportunity to hear that craptacular “Hello Moto” ringtone for the first time. Hardly enough to justify two phone rentals and international text surcharges, though.