Anyone else's mobile device history take some turns outside the mainstream?

In middle/early high school, I got my first MP3 player that wasn't a glorified USB stick: a 4 GB #Zune. This little indestructible device sparked my obsession with #Microsoft software. The Zune software (both on-device and the companion software on PC) was gorgeous. Decidedly some of Microsoft's best UI/UX work.

Later in high school I upgraded to a #ZuneHD, and eventually my first cell phone was a #MicrosoftKin TWOm, which incidentally had the same SOC as the Zune HD (a first-gen Nvidia Tegra), and even ran a version of Windows Mobile that integrated the Zune UI itself as the “Music” functionality.

By graduation, I'd begun my journey with #WindowsPhone. From a #NokiaLumia 820, to a Lumia Icon, to my final WP, a now first-party “Microsoft Lumia” 950XL. Stunning devices: high-quality cameras (at the time; the Lumia 1020 in 2013 had a 42 MP main camera, while the next highest resolution camera in a phone at the time was 21MP, a spec that wouldn't be surpassed by another phone for 5 more years), (usually) removable polycarbonate backs with removable batteries, fairly early adoption of Qi (wireless charging)… I could go on and on.

When I finally, begrudgingly, moved on to an #Android device (a pitiful Essential Phone), it wasn't because I didn't like my Windows Phone. I loved it. It was because Microsoft had finally called the time of death.

#Retrospective #Retrocomputing