I was pretty happy with my Samsung Galaxy S II, especially after the non-trivial Jelly Bean upgrade some time ago. Because of that and as I wanted to wait until I had 3 vouchers from my employer (which covers the bulk of the cost of a high-end device), I decided to hang on to my S II for one more year.

But then (about a week after the guarantee period ended) it died on me. Black screen, no sound what so ever. I tried charging it (the battery was running low a couple of hours before), but the thing remained dark. I tried replacing the battery with a known good one, but still nothing but silence. I banged it against the counter of the shop where I bought it and threw it up in the air while yelling slightly frantically;

‘ELLO SAMMY!!!!!
Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock alarm call!
…
THIS IS AN EX-SMARTPHONE!

But the shop-guy just said my Sammy was stunned and that it was out of guarantee anyway.

So I needed an alternative. I started out using my wife’s ancient Sony Ericsson w810 (which I used before her) but that didn’t work for me. I then convinced a colleague (thanks Gregory) to lend me the HTC Radar from his collection of test-devices, but the Windows Phone experience was pretty similar to the one I had over a year ago. In the mean time I tried to find me a smuggler who could buy me a ZTE Open with Firefox OS in Spain (thanks Tamara, thanks Pieter & Tine) but Telefonica (Movistar) support couldn’t confirm it wasn’t sim-locked so I cancelled the order.

And then i saw colleague after colleague (Benoit & evil twin Jean-Paul) surrender to the sweetness of what is considered the current hotshot smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S 4. And after someone (Gregory, great chap!) gave me his voucher (on condition he would get mine next year), I caved and ran down to buy me that beautiful telephone. So (again) no Firefox OS phone for me just yet, I have me a new PRISM-device to tame.