The Moses Phone...Nokia 3310

Since this phone was purchased Australia has seen two Prime Ministers, fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and pulled out of the latter. It has risen to the dizzying heights of financial success in the mining boom and been laid low by the credit crunch. This little brick has assisted conversations about the rise of Big Brother and its demise, it has transmitted messages of sadness at the death of Michael Jackson and texts of concern over the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and the success of the Socceroos in the 2006 World Cup.

Basically the bloody thing is ancient.

Somehow this little trooper of a phone has survived the usual cracked screen and of dead battery which put millions of other Nokia's into the world's tech landfills. It's owner has successfully bypassed the polyphonic ringtone craze, the MMS enabled phone boom, the internet enabled phone rise and fall, the inbuilt MP3 player boon and the mobile phone FM radio gimmick. It's owner is a mobile phone retailers' worst nightmare. He has avoided the entire evolution of mobile phone technology from basic handset to internet enabled smart-phone.

But, sadly, a promotion to an executive position has required the issue of a Blackberry smart-phone and the retirement of the little blue worker to the bottom desk drawer.

You, Nokia 3310, are the epitome of Gadget Zombie. You continue to live when all logic, and the engineering of those Swedes at Nokia, says you should have died in early 2004. We salute you a bid you a goodnight. God's speed to mobile phone paradise.

Nokia 3310 (Manufactured in 2000)

Features: SMS, calculator, stop watch, reminder, monophonic ringtones,  voice dialling.
Games: Snake II, Paris II, Space Impact and Bantumi.

The laptop phone...Nokia E61-1

This phone harks back to the days before iPhone murdered the need for a smart phone to have a massive QWERTY keyboard whacked on the front. Its owner assures me it is a fairly easy to use device, even if the numbers don't always work.
The biggest set back of its design has to be how bloody awfully big it is, I mean really what was the designer thinking?
"Hey let's make a phone the size of a small novel! People will love that."
Too bad if you want to put it in your pants, there is no way its frame is going to slide easily into a pocket. You're going to have a serious cased of ripped...no...torn denim. It's going to be like those new 'pocket PCs' which could only fit in a wizard's pocket.
But like all little zombies this phone just keeps going and not just with one owner. It was given by an Optus store as a temporary phone while repairs are made to a less reliable, but much smaller, model. Battle on little baby. Model number and make to come.
"Look my little hand won't even fit around it!" exclaimed the owner.

Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen 30gig

Despite looking like a house brick this solid MP3 player was bought in 2005(correction 2003) when the iPod was just one of many portable music players and not the standard.
USB 2.0 Port. Mono-colour screen. Decent 30 gig capacity. Still works, zero problems in all likely hood will outlast my iPhone and whatever comes next. A true little zombie.

Attention: Sadly only a week after this article was first posted the little trooper gave up the ghost. Now it rests in a desk drawer and its owner bought a replacement with almost as much memory for a fraction of the 2003 store price. Ah Moore's Law in action.

Welcome to Gadget Zombie

The 1950s share house fridge, an ancient espresso maker from Papa's shed, the jet engine lawn mower that could slice through steel and the seventies TV which seemingly will live longer than yourself.

This is the home of those devices which refuse to quietly accept the grave of obsolescence or irreparable failure and keep functioning well beyond their lifetime.