Looking back on an advert: Samsung Galaxy Mini II vs Nokia Asha 311

Five years ago (as of February 2019), this photo comparing Samsung Galaxy Mini II and Nokia Asha 311 caught my eye. On the surface, both had comparable specifications to what I wanted, but I'd preferred a Nokia phone simply on the strength of the Nokia brand. What follows, is a comment that I recently posted.

When my primary phone was a flip-phone with just a 2 Mpix camera, then I dreamed of getting that Nokia Asha 311 one day, as it had all of the new features that I thought I could want.

A young relative got that one for his birthday, but lost it soon after under a tree in the countryside (it was found a year later in a bit disheveled state, but it still worked).

In late 2013, I got the Galaxy Mini II as a hand-me-down (used). It's got a better camera than the flip phone (3.15 Mpix), and comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, ended up with a longer useable lifetime and with more functionality and apps than I would have had with Asha 311.

For instance, I could install Firefox on Android, and that extended the Mini II's useable lifetime for quite a bit longer than it would with just the default Android browser.

If equipped with NoScript, and configured properly, then Firefox is the browser that can prevent the planned obsolescence of many old Androids.

When several apps stopped working on Android 2.3, I could use their mobile web equivalents in Firefox. Even Skype for Web, which needed specific work to function in Firefox on Gingerbread.

Five years after I got the Mini II, by Christmas 2018, I finally got an upgrade, which is a hand-me-down from an elder relative, who got a substantial phone upgrade themselves, and had no need for the old phone.

The 'newer' phone has almost the same specs, but a 5 Mpix camera, and had Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which I'd upgraded it to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean through the phone's official connectivity software.

I would have stayed with Android 4.0.3, but I needed the upgrade, as 4.1 Jelly Bean is the earliest version supported by the Smart ID app, without which I wouldn't be able to do online banking on my phone, should the need arise. I don't have the SmartID app yet, but now I have the possibility to eventually find out, if I can run it there.

The origins of 'free Wi-Fi everywhere in Estonia'

This was initially written as a reply, so I've expanded this post with more links. This blogpost is meant to point out wifi.ee as one of the places where it all began.

There's a very insightful thread on reddit about the history of the notion of "free Wi-Fi everywhere in Estonia".

As of 2019, free Wi-Fi in Estonia hasn't gone anywhere, and continues to thrive in many places.

But there were free Wi-Fi hotspots ten and even fifteen years ago, too, and even earlier (802.11b). Generally, the newer 802.11g Wi-Fi standard was first adopted in January 2003, which is almost exactly 16 years ago.

The earliest Internet Archive snapshot of wifi.ee, a website that began mapping public Wi-fi hotspots in Estonia, dates back to 7 march 2002. That's 17 years ago; there were only 7 public hotspots in all of Estonia on 14 March 2002.

Just look at this archived photo made in Tartu Lõunakeskus. That's seventeen years ago!

The Reddit thread is insightful, as several posts point out, that this kind of connectivity was almost unheard of elsewhere, and was like science fiction to people visiting the country.

The current 2019 map has 1225 free/public Wi-Fi networks.