I'd totally agree with Bruno. I'm feeling a need to sort out my own history of attempting to stay with "cutting edge" phones.

Back in the older days, before the grand unification of U.S. cellular companies, there were four different radio standards in the U.S.: AMPS analog, TDMA, GSM, and CDMA. During those days, there was no such thing as a quad-band GSM phone, so all the really cool GSM phones didn't work here. In 1998, when I first moved to Houston, I had a Nokia 6110 (TDMA + AMPS), which I later replaced with a much more compact Nokia 8210 (also TDMA + AMPS). That was around the time that TDMA was going away and GSM was taking over the show. I switched from Houston Cellular (later to be absorbed by AT&T) to Ariel Communications (later to be absorbed by T-Mobile) and got an Ericsson T28, which stayed in my desk drawer because I imported the then-hot Ericsson T39m as my phone. It even had Bluetooth (which I never really got working with the Bluetooth USB adapter that I bought). What really sold me, though, was the fact that I could synchronize my contacts and calendar with my computer. The official Ericsson software was total crap, but I found third-party software that worked great.

I seem to recall, at the time, that all the coolest phones were GSM, leveraging the larger market volumes in Europe. CDMA phones, at the time, were a whole generation behind. Bigger, uglier, chunkier.

I was missing the simplicity and speed of the Nokia UI, so I imported another European-only phone, the Nokia 5100, which was a bit bigger, but was quite rugged, had a built-in flashlight, and could connect to USB. Amazing. Again, I had to use third-party software for the synchronization. This was the era of totally boring phones from the major American carriers, so importing was the only way to get truly interesting kit.

Next up was the Motorola RAZR. Finally, a domestic-offered phone that was truly interesting. The UI sucked, and again it required third-party software to synchronize properly, but it felt good, had great battery life, and so forth. The RAZR got fried when it got wet (*sigh*) so I imported a KRZR, which my wife is still using. Awesome physical package. Still lame software. This was around the time that Nokia had completely disappeared from the U.S. market. There just wasn't anything compelling from Nokia versus the subsidized cost of a RAZR/KRZR.

Then came the iPhone. Finally, an integrated product, no third-party software, and all the other benefits we all know. I still occasionally miss the simplicity of the Nokia UI and the compact feel of the Motorola handsets. Maybe we'll get that back at some point in a decent smartphone.