My first smartphone was the Nokia 7610 that was gifted to me sometime in 2004.
It had a 176x208 screen with support for 65K colours. It had 8 MB RAM and 64 MB of storage.
It ran on Symbian Series 60 2nd Edition. I don’t think there was an app store. I remember getting J2ME apps/games off of third party stores. Note the presence of RealPlayer:
In terms of applications, I had a J2ME version of Google Maps, which was very impressive in 2004; this was when paper maps were still commonly used. The J2ME version of Gmail also felt very futuristic.
It had a browser that could access the regular web (not just WAP). Vast majority of websites had no mobile friendly views, but websites were somewhat simpler then. Google Search did have a good mobile web version as did Google News (if I remember correctly). Keypad navigation actually worked much better than you think it would.
I did listen to MP3s on the Nokia 7610, but you could only put a few on the phone. You technically could also watch videos, but I never tried it.
I believe I kept using this phone all the way till 2007-2008 when I switched to another Symbian device. I only switched to Android with 4.x when I got the HTC One X in 2012.
(Not my actual phone/wiki image)
I had a Sony Ericsson P800 ~2004. I ordered it from eBay from someone in Europe second hand IIRC.
No one around me had a smart phone back then. I got it to track my business contacts for auto body stuff like what used car lots I cold called when and who I talked to. There were a lot of people that argued about how their tiny dumb thin and flip phones were the greatest, but I got the last laugh.
The P800 was a resistive touch screen and overall was pretty terrible compared to now. It was clear to see the limitations of resistive touchscreen tech. It was easy for me to see that capacitive touch was going to change the world even before Apple jumped on that train early. Capacitive touch and Nvidia with AI are the two times I could have bet the farm and would have… if I owned a farm. It simply fit a need and a separate palm organizer and iPod seemed redundant.
My dad had a P800 for a few years, he hated it almost as much as he hated the Blackberry he was forced to use for a few months…
My pocket was probably the safest place around when I was painting. My clothes were practically hard armor and I have had shorts that could stand on their own from all the primer, clear coat, and colors. Funny thing is that the type of spray guns I used most would typically leak a small amount over my fingers. I often had color and clear coat randomly over my fingernails. It wears off of most of the skin within half a day, but fingernails can last for weeks. Business cards, notebooks, and peripheral devices all got damaged and spilled on over time. So from that angle a small pocket device was ideal for me. I was already carrying a phone 24/7 anyways. The thing worked terrible in the sun though, and resistive touch was an inaccurate nuisance.