There are only around 3 or 4 phones in this list that I consider to be the perfect devices for the time period and my application and this was one of them. I don’t really consider the NEC between this and the 3200 as one of my devices because of the short time period I owned it, so side by side with the Nokia 3200 getting this device in 2006 was a major upgrade.
Over the 3200 it had Bluetooth, WAP, an excellent loudspeaker, a headphone adapter to take any 3.5mm headphones, memory card expandability, had dedicated media buttons and of course was a clamshell with a secondary screen for notifications and media information when shut.
With this phone I could retire my terrible 128MB AA battery powered MP3 player, it had 256MB of internal storage and could be expanded by a further 2GB. I think I may have had a 1GB card for this. This was a marked point where phones began to consolidate the need for multiple devices into one. Later in the phones life I did get an iPod Nano but this phone still got used for media when a loudspeaker was required. The loudspeaker was particularly good quality compared to other phones of the time, and if I was with friends it was always the W300i that got used to play music as it was clearer and louder than the others.
To date the W300i is my longest serving device, it lasted me a whole 4 years which took the majority of the way through high school. The battery lasted well throughout my ownership, in the absence of social media sharing music, funny videos and pictures took place through Bluetooth so it also took a beating there. The device was very durable, surviving countless drops, bangs and falls onto every imaginable surface. It survived years in the pocket of a very active teenager and never faltered. Until the fateful day it met its demise. I still remember it clearly, it was 2010 and we were in the midst of a very severe winter. We’d had at least 6 inches of snow and I’d just walked a girlfriend home. I was wrapped up well with a down coat, hat and gloves and my phone had just vibrated. I pulled the phone out to check and with the gloves on, fumbled opening it and it fell into the snow while open. Being white and the snow being deep it completely disappeared so was in the snow for a good couple of minutes before I found it. The phone survived initially, I folded it back up and put it back in my pocket. By the time I was home though it had died, the snow that had made its way into the hinges melted and destroyed the phone.
To this day the W300i reminds me of a simpler time. Happy times with friends and the chaotic times of Bluetooth file sharing and hacks, taking over each others devices and generally causing mischief. A time when phones weren’t as important, weren’t as expensive and they didn’t hold the key to our entire lives.
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