Actually I have four smart phones, not just the 520, 920, and 1020. On Black Friday I walked to the corner Radio Shack (will it still be there this morning?) and bought a moto-e for $50. I was curious to see how it worked. So far it’s another phone not used as a phone, but it has one thing none of my Windows phones have, a Nook app. That’s it. It’s my Nook reader.

A year ago I’d not yet owned a smart phone. Cell phones, sure, a couple since a fire scared us a decade or so ago, but I was a bit slow to commit. I wanted a Windows phone (no need to explain why, it was just good sense)–later, more specifically, a Nokia–but my provider, Sprint, was also slow to commit. So I waited and studied and read up on the API etc. I went to Build twice, 2013 and 2014, expecting I might get one thrust upon me, no more decision dithering, but no luck there. I did get the Surface Pro I’m using to write this, and an Xbox One that looks cute on my desk upstairs, but no new phone. At the 2014 Build I used a paper printout of a barcode to get into the Xamarin after hours party, lugging my Xbox in a cloth bag I’d brought for the occasion.

Now I own three Nokia phones, a 520, a 1020, and a 920. Here’s how it happened. After Build I had to decide what to do with the $500 credit at the Microsoft store we’d been given to see if we could make our own decisions. I liked the extremism of the 41 megapixel camera in the 1020, but there were other possibilities, like a nice Asus 8″ with a Wacom pen, or the possibility of buying something for someone else. So I bought a 520 as a GoPhone at the corner Radio Shack (yes, really, I can see it from my porch).

I bought the 520 because I wanted to try developing something on it, and it was cheap and available, but it’s actually a nice device. I can’t say it either is or is not a nice phone, since I don’t use it that way–I don’t make or get calls much, and I haven’t yet given up my Sprint flip phone–but it’s light, cheap enough to assuage worry, plays 2048 quite nicely, and hooks up to my USB port to test stuff. This was in April, shortly after Build.

Towards the end of the month, just before I had finally to decide what to do with my Microsoft Store credit, I attended a DVLUP Day event at the Nokia San Diego office up the street from my day job. The date coincided with the Microsoft acquisition, which affect the tone slightly, but there was a lot to learn, and the promise of a free phone for all attendees who got an app into the Windows Phone store quickly enough (the ending date waffled a little, or my knowledge of it did). Anyway, the event convinced me to go with the 1020 instead of some other bauble, like that 8″ Asus.

The 1020 is a great device. I chose it for the camera, and use it that way, but it has a phone number, and I can get my email facebook and twitter when I’m not at home now, which may have changed my life a little. But, still, it’s mostly for development, I say here.

The Nokia event was a great challenge, because it got me to go through all the steps with my practice app, which, however simple and specialized, is now in the store. And, after a while (the turmoil of the acquisition?) another phone, a white 920, arrived in the mail, another nice phone, and more than I expected.

So that’s it. Later, development tales.