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And I didn't get a smart phone until a bit later. While everyone else in college was moving to early Android phones or iPhones, I stayed without a proper smartphone or internet phone. It was only now in 2013 that I finally got one, and it wasn't a normal phone. It was one of the early Asus Fonepads: a giant 7-inch Intel-powered Android tablet hybrid that took a SIM card.
That initial Asus Fonepad broke soon after I got it. But instead of going back to relying solely on the laptop or getting a regular small phone, I bought another Asus device in the exact same lineup. If I recall correctly, it was ASUS K012, which is the official model code for the ASUS Fonepad 7 (FE170CG).
Holding a full 7-inch tablet up to your ear to answer a phone call looked completely absurd in public. People would stare like you were holding a tray to your face. But coming from years of lugging around a cracked 15-inch Lotus Pink Dell Inspiron with a dead battery, pulling SIM cards out of my phone, and plugging Huawei 3G USB dongles into laptop ports just to get 2G/3G speeds, having a single handheld screen with cellular data was a massive relief.
That Asus Fonepad marked a fundamental transition. Internet was no longer a destination you sat down at a desk to connect to through USB modems and Linux Network Manager hacks. It was always in your hands. The cracked Dell Inspiron was finally demoted to a deskbound media storage machine, ending the first leg of my OS and hardware journey.