My first one was a Samsung Galaxy S1 that I got in 2013 and it was a great little device that was easy to open up and repair. It had only 512MB of RAM but that was plenty for basic phone needs, web browsing and running some Android apps like AnkiDroid at the time.
Mine was the T-Mobile G1. Slide out keyboard and track ball. I remember being underwhelmed by Android at the time so I switched to the Nokia N900 for a while which comparitively was more mature than android and iOS at the time.
Motorola Droid running 1.6 Donut.
T-Mobile G1
Nexus One was my first Android phone. I miss the trackball every day… so handy for moving the cursor through text. And it doubled as a notification LED! So sweet. Plus the removable battery, shit was awesome. I still have it in a box somewhere. I’m on a Pixel 7 now.
The first Android phone in our family was my mother’s Samsung Galaxy Ace. And naturally, I’ve used that phone more than she did. As a kid I considered that swipe keyboard as mankind’s greatest achievement. I would send lengthy SMS to friends and family because typing was suddenly so easy.