The Evolution of Wireless Handsets

Motorola DynaTAC 8000X  (1983)

• The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X started the wireless communication revolution. It was also known as “brick” phone. suffered mostly from low battery life and signal loss issues.

Siemens Mobiltelefon C1 (1985 )

• Siemens Mobiltelefon C1 entered the market at about same time as Motorola. It was bulky like hell but had good battery time and strong reception. Due to it’s briefcase size, it was more of a car phone.

Motorola MicroTAC 9800X (1989)

• Motorola hit the market by storm with it’s first slim, flip style wireless phone working on analog technology. MicroTAC’s design dominated the phone market for a long time to come after that. It had a nice 8 digit LED display that let you do most of the tasks. This was the first wireless phone adopted by masses.

Siemens S1 (1992)

• Siemens S1 was the first wireless phone with a 4 line LCD display and many great features including long range and good battery life.

Nokia 1610 (1995)

• Nokia became market leader by release of Its model 1610 as It offered over 7 hours of talk time and up to 200 hours of standby time. It also featured the new(at that time) user friendly Nokia interface for wireless phones. over all a great phone at that time.. I used to have one of those. we used to show them off at parties. Try to take one of these to a party … ha ha ha..

Nokia 8110 (1996)

• Then came the trendy Nokia 8110 aka “The Matrix Phone” that slides open. It looked very trendy at that time. It was the first phone people bought as a fashion statement. It was geared toward the higher end of market and became very popular after being featured in the Matrix, the movie.

Motorola StarTAC (1996)

• Motorola replied soon with its first clam shell handset that was smallest phone at that time. It  was hugely inspired by Star trek series communicator. It was also the first phone with vibrator function. It was probably the start of handset wars. the industry never looked back after that.

Nokia 7110 (1999)

• Inspired by first of matrix movie Nokia 7110 was first one that flick opened using a spring load. This was first phone with WAP browser and dynamic memory allocation among contacts, calendar and messages. They called this phone “almost a smart phone” but now,we can easily call it “start of mobile Internet era”. Full Specs here

Nokia 3210, 3310, 8210, (2000)

• Nokia 3210 was first phone with “Internal Antenna”. Nokia 3310 is still very popular set in second hand wireless phone markets. the wireless phone is available both in AMPs and GSM models. Its snake game is world famous and people can still be found playing with it in subways.

Blackberry 6230, (2003)

• Blackberry started another revolution by bringing personal organizers and phones in one product. this phone had full QWERTY keyboard, Browser, Email, Note pad and other applications for business users. It had 16 MB internal memory. this phone can still be bought on eBay. Phones kept on getting smarter and smarter from here.

Motorola V3 (2005)

• Camera and Music became essential feature of a wireless phone. Wireless phones became smart phones. Wireless phones became a fashion accessory. people wear them like glasses, jewelry. Motorola V3 changes the whole concept of cutting edge design in wireless phones. It remained the phone of choice until Apple’s iPhone took the fashion segment of market from it. Motorola never came up with anything close to V3 again.

Apple’s iPhone (2007)

• Apple’s iPhone was an instant hit all over the world as it was  first multi-touch wireless phone with sleek, sexy design. It was so popular that they had to put a limit on purchase, (max 2 per person) when it launched.