The cellphone

By erlich and levi and cohen

  • 1973

    1973
    The first ever mobile phone call was made by Dr Martin Cooper, a Motorola employee, in New York using a prototype Dyna TAC phone. Cooper called his friend who worked at rival AT&T. The phone weighed over a kilogramme and took 10 hours to charge!

  • 1979

    1979
    Japan has always been at the forefront of technology and in 1979 they launched the first ever commercially available automated cellular network, it was however only available in cars. We now call this “1G”.

  • 1981

    1981
    1G reaches western shores, first in Scandinavia and then the UK and North America.

  • 1983

    1983
    The first mobile phone goes on sale in the shape of the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It cost an eye-watering $4000 USD.

  • 1985

    1985
    Michael Harrison made the first ever mobile phone call in the UK. He called his father, the then Chairman of Vodafone, Sir Ernest Harrison.

  • 1989

    1989
    The first ever truly portable mobile phone hits the shelves – the Motorola 9800X which features a flip down to cover the keypad.

  • 1991

    1991
    GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phone launched and 2G digital cellular networks replaced the 1G analogue system.

  • 1992

    1992
    Neil Papworth sent the first ever text message to Vodafone director Richard Jarvis's Orbitel TPU 901 phone. It read “happy Christmas!”.

  • 1994

    1994
    IBM brought out the Simon which had a touchscreen and a very early form of what we all know today as ‘Apps’. It cost $899 and only worked in 15 states in the US. Nokia also launched the 2110 in Europe, it was one of the smallest GSM phones available and a choice of ringtones which brought us the iconic Grande Valse, now known as the Nokia tune.

  • 1996

    1996
    The first ever phone with the ‘slider’ form factor came in the shape of the Nokia 8110. It had the nickname the banana phone due to its shape and even made an appearance on the big screen in the Matrix. It was also the first device to feature a monochrome LCD screen. Another first came from the Motorola StarTAC as the first ever flip phone or clamshell device. It sold over 60 million units worldwide.

  • 1997

    1997
    The iconic game Snake is launched on the Nokia 6110 which marks the start of mobile gaming. Hagenuk launched the GlobalHandy with no external aerial; Ericcson brought out coloured keyboard panels and Siemens brought us the first coloured screen phone – the S10. In the UK Mercury One2One started the first ever pay as you go services called ‘Up 2 You’. It allowed customers to top up their call credit and later became T-Mobile and then EE.

  • 1998

    1998
    Nokia launched the 5110 which was hugely popular with the consumer market and it incorporated replaceable faceplates (which Nokia branded 'Xpress-on covers') making it the first truly customisable phone.

  • 1999

    1999
    WAP launches on the Nokia 7110 making it the first phone capable of browsing the web albeit a trimmed down version which didn’t provide the full HTML experience we know today.

  • 2000

    2000
    The Sharp J-SH04 becomes the first camera phone on the market but only available in Japan. BlackBerry launch their 857 which support email and web browsing signifying the start of BlackBerry’s reign as the business phone kings. Nokia also launched perhaps the most iconic phone of all time – the Nokia 3310. It sold 126 million units.