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An easy way to find out if someone is of the tech persuasion is to ask them about their first smartphone or computer. If their eyes light up and they immediately spit out a full product name, you know you’re in good company. Let me tell you about my favorite “First”—the HTC Droid Eris, my first smartphone.
When I graduated from high school in the late 2000s, mobile technology and the internet were just starting to take off. My family was upgrading from dial-up to Wi-Fi, I finally got my own flip phone after having shared custody of one with my siblings, and I made an account on this thing called Facebook.
This was when I started to really become interested in mobile technolgy. I would spend hours every day reading tech blogs and watching unboxing videos on YouTube at my boring part-time college job. Even “feature phones” like theLG Darewere fascinating to me, but the gadget I was unquestionably most excited about was the iPhone.
The problem was Apple decided to make the iPhone exclusive to AT&T, and I was stuck on my parent’s Verizon plan. That didn’t stop me from obsessing over the iPhone, though. So, in 2009, when Apple dropped the price of the 8GB iPod Touch 2nd Generation to $200, I snagged one. I absolutely loved that thing, but it didn’t take long for me to stumble down the road of jailbreaking and modding.
Meanwhile, Android phones were starting to become a thing. Verizon—who was desperate to have an iPhone competitor—launched its first Android phone, the Motorola DROID, in 2009 with a massive marketing campaign. I had gonedeepdown the rabbit hole of jailbreaking my iPod Touch (I even published some themes to the Cydia Store), and that modding mindset drew me to Android.
Not the Droid I Was Looking For
It’s hard to fully explain how big the original Moto DROID hype train really was. Verizon went hard on the iPhone vs Android tribalism (and is probably largely responsible for it). DROID ads were all about things the iPhone couldn’t do that “Droid Does.” It was all very edgy and in your face.
Personally, the DROID never appealed to me. The anti-iPhone ads and robotic “DROOOIIIID” sound were cool, but I didn’t care for the physical keyboard and general aesthetic. In November 2009, a month after the DROID launched, Verizon released its second Android phone. The HTC Droid Eris received far less attention, but it was the phone calling my name.
A big reason why the Eris appealed to me was HTC Sense, the company’s skin on top of Android (I’vewrittenabout iteverychanceI get). Nowadays, Google’s vision for Android is very clean and polished—it’s why I prefer Pixel phones. But back then, stock Android was barebones and pretty ugly. HTC Sense was a huge improvement.
So, in February 2010, I convinced my mom to let me add a data plan to our account and purchased my very first smartphone, the HTC Droid Eris.
In some ways, going from an iPod Touch 2nd Gen to the HTC Eris was a downgrade. The Eris had a smaller screen, it was chunkier, slower, and had far fewer apps. It didn’t matter—I felt like I had entered a new level of technological progress. I had a device in my pocket that could browse the web and send tweetsfrom anywhere.
HTC Sense was what drew me to the Eris, but it quickly became the thing holding it back. The Eris launched with Android 1.5 Cupcake and ended life a mere eight months after launch with Android 2.1 Eclair. There I was with a phone I’d only owned for about four months, and it was already done receiving Android updates. It was time to put my modding hat back on.
A Lifelong Connection Is Made
Oddly enough, the end of the HTC Eris' life is where my love for the phone really blossomed. I was a big Android fan by this time, and I wanted to try every new release as soon as it was available. But HTC was done updating the phone, so I had to take matters into my own hands. That’s how I stumbled upon the XDA-Developers Forums.
As mentioned, the Eris was only the seventh Android phone, which meant there was a big community of owners. Android 2.2 Froyo was the latest version that everyone was clamoring for, and after Google wowed tech nerds with the Nexus One, I was ready to ditch HTC Sense and try stock Android. I can still remember the name of the XDA member who made the first custom ROM I downloaded: punk.kaos.
I rode with the Kaos ROMs through Froyo and eventually Android 2.3 Gingerbread. I vividly remember downloading ROM updates in the middle of class in college. I was installing themes, making boot animations, trying to mod the notification icons in APKs, and just generally having a blast. It felt like the wild west; like I could doanythingto this phone. And there were so many people along with me keeping a dead device alive.
A year after I had gotten the Eris, my eyes were starting to stray. I knew that whatever phone I got next would need to have an active modding community behind it. Ultimately, I found a good deal on a Moto DROID 2 on Swappa and went for it. Then, I did something really stupid—I sold my beloved HTC Eris to make up for some of the cost.
Over the years, I would think about my first smartphone every once in a while. I had kept my first flip phone, and I could power it on to reminiscence, but I couldn’t do that with my Eris. It left a hole in my techy heart. After a particularly deep conversation about first gadgets with some friends, I decided to buy an HTC Droid Eris on eBay for a measly $20.
I’m happy that I can once again hold this shockingly tiny phone in my hands and remember where my smartphone journey began. This second-hand market Eris isn’t the same one that saw dozens of weird Twitter apps and AIM clients, changed themes more times than I could count, installed custom ROMs late into the night, and accompanied me everywhere as a young college student, but it’s a nice reminder of that time.
I’ve been lucky to use so many awesome smartphones since then, but I don’t remember any of them as fondly as the HTC Droid Eris.
