By Jo Best, 27 November 2006 10:35
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The Dynatac lays claim to being the world's first proper mobile phone and was the first to sport the 'brick' look. While other 'mobile' devices had come before the Dynatac, they involved not only carrying a handset but lugging a huge briefcase-sized battery along with it.
The 'shoe phone', as it was known, first came onto the market in 1984 costing nearly $4,000 and promising around a half an hour of talk time. The Dynatac prospered nonetheless and inspired Nokia to come up with the Cityman, an equally heavyweight brick phone aimed at the business market. The candybar mobile was born.
Photo credit: Motorola
Comments
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1. Black Jack Shellac
This thing looks like a contraceptive pill case. Ugh.
2. Joseph Blowseph
No date? When was this thing marketed?
3. anonymous
From whay you've written, it sounds like Ericsson before the merger was just some small company that made unsuccessful products.
Ericsson made a lot of cell phones and were very popular both at home in Sweden and world wide, afterall who doesn't wan't a phone like James Bond? ;)
4. Ben Combee
The R380 came out in late 1999 around the same time that Qualcomm shipped the pdQ, a Palm OS powered smartphone on the US CDMA networks.
5. Keith
Dude, it's the Zack Morris phone!
6. Chris Davies
The StarTac phone was a piece of shit. I had several of them. No metal frame made them very flimsy, easily damaged, and quite unreliable: a far cry from the indestructible DynaTac which suffered submerging in water, falling off the roof of the van at 60 mph and being driven over at one point.
To this day, the DynaTac (Which I still have stored!) still has the best coverage of any phone ever made. It was so powerful, it probably semi-cooked my brain.
7. Ed W
At least one iconic Nokia is missing: the 2110. The first of these really changed the world IMO and set Nokia on the path to the company it is today.
8. gary
strange not to feature the motorola razr-- which surely is something of a design icon (though less than perfect in terms of usability!)
9. Phil Shipperlee
Without doubt, the best phone in the world ever is the Nokia 6310i. It is a phone - that is what it is and what it does - no unwanted rubbish, great keyboard and battery life and very reliable - works every time. So good I have bought a couple of secondhand spares so I should be good for the next 10 years.
10. Andrew Lewis
Had them, all....!
Started with a Panasonic transmobile in 1986 (£2000 but worked for 8 years!), then progressed to a Nokia 2110 (great phone and faultless), then a Startac 130 (loved it but single band), then a 9110 (17 in nine months), followed by a 9210 (5 in 3 weeks) and then a Motorola V3 (great an reliable) and finally a V3X (upgrade from V3 due to 3G data speeds and very pleased with it). I also had a (several) Nokia 8850s (nine in ten days).
I think Nokia have lost the plot. Their modern phones are unreliable and the designs are a bit bizarre.
Some of my reps still have 9210s and 5110s and don't want to upgrade for fear of an unreliable phone!
11. Brad Carter
Keith, that is nothing like the Zack morris phone. Not even close.
12. Ring TinTin
Phaa..........mobile phones are rubbish