In Pictures: A History of Cell Phones

In 1973, Motorola showed off a prototype of the world’s first portable cellular telephone. That phone, which measured more than a foot long, weighed almost 2 pounds, and cost $3995, ultimately became commercial available in 1983. Known as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, its battery could provide 1 hour of talk time, and its memory could store 30 phone numbers. It may not have been pretty, but it did let you talk while on the go–if you could lift it, that is.

It may look more like a boombox than a portable phone, but this boxy, bulky device was actually Nokia’s first mobile (if you can call it that) phone. Introduced in 1982, the Nokia Mobira Senator was designed for use in cars. After all, you wouldn’t want to use this phone while walking: It weighed about 21 pounds.

A cell phone with added PDA functions isn’t news today. But in 1993, it was a novel idea. The Simon Personal Communicator, jointly marketed by IBM and BellSouth, was the first mobile phone to add PDA features. It was a phone, pager, calculator, address book, fax machine, and e-mail device in one package, albeit a 20-ounce package that cost $900.

Before the Motorola StarTAC was introduced in 1996, cell phones were more about function than fashion. But this tiny, lightweight phone ushered in the concept that style was just as important, ultimately paving the way for today’s sleek-looking phones like the Motorola Razr. This 3.1-ounce clamshell-style phone, which could easily be clipped to a belt, was the smallest and lightest of its time. In fact, it was smaller and lighter than many of today’s teeny-tiny cell phones.

In the late 1990s, Nokia’s candybar-style cell phones were all the rage. Sporting a monochrome display, an external antenna, and a boxy, 5.2-inch tall frame, the Nokia 6160 was the company’s best-selling handset of the 1990s. The somewhat sleeker Nokia 8260, introduced in 2000, added a colorful case and lost some of the 6160’s bulk: it stood only about 4 inches tall and weighed 3.4 ounces, compared with almost 6 ounces for the 6160.

If you’re one of the many fans of the Palm OS-based Treo phone, you might want to thank Kyocera. The company’s QCP6035 smart phone, which hit the retail market in early 2001 and cost between $400 and $500 (depending on the carrier), was the first Palm-based phone to be widely available to users. It included a measly 8MB of memory, and sported a bland monochrome display, but it paved the way for future products.

Back when Palm and Handspring were still rivals, Handspring made waves with the Treo 180. More PDA than phone, the Treo 180 came in two versions: one with a QWERTY keyboard for typing (pictured), and another (the Treo 180g) that used Graffiti text input instead. Like the Kyocera QCP6035, it featured a monochrome screen, but boasted 16MB of memory.

Before the T-Mobile Sidekick became Hollywood’s “it” phone, it was known as the Danger Hiptop. PC World liked it so much that we named it our product of the year in 2003. While its voice capabilities were only mediocre, this was one of the first devices to offer truly functional mobile Web browsing, e-mail access, and instant messaging. Plus, it pioneered that nifty swiveling design.

Before the BlackBerry 5810 came along in early 2002, Research In Motion’s devices were best known for their data capabilities: Push e-mail technology, Organizer features, and thumb keyboards. The 5810–the first BlackBerry to offer voice capabilities–changed that perception. This device added a GSM cell phone to the package, albeit one that required the use of a headset (it lacked both a speaker and a microphone).

Today, most cell phones come with a built-in camera. But, just a few years ago, a camera phone was hard to come by. In 2002, Sanyo and Sprint debuted the Sanyo SCP-5300 PCS phone, which they claimed was the first mobile phone available in America with a built-in camera. (A camera phone from Sharp had been available in Japan for a few years.) At its highest resolution, it captured VGA (640 by 480) images–a far cry from today’s 5-megapixel camera phones like the Nokia N95.

Nokia’s N-Gage also created plenty of buzz when it was launched in 2003, but, unfortunately, most of the buzz was bad. This combination cell phone/gaming device was supposed to lure gamers away from their portable devices. Instead, it earned scorn for its odd curved design, and the fact that you had to hold the phone on its side to place a call. Later versions (like the N-Gage QD, launched in 2004) fixed many of the problems with the original device. But for many, the damage was done.

Cell phones continued to get thinner and more stylish over the years, but it was the debut of the Motorola Razr v3 in 2004 that took design to another level. With its super-slim lines and sleek metallic look, the Razr quickly became the must-have accessory. Three years later, it remains one of the most popular handsets on the market (according to market data from The NPD Group, various versions of the Razr were 3 of the 4 best-selling handsets in 2006), and is one of the few phones offered by almost every major wireless carrier.

It promised to bring together the best of two worlds: Apple’s excellent iTunes music player and Motorola’s cell phone design expertise. The Motorola Rokr, released in September 2005, was the first music phone to incorporate Apple’s music software. It allowed users to transfer songs purchased from iTunes to the phone for listening on the go. Unfortunately, users found song transfers to be painfully slow, and many were stymied by the 100-song limit imposed on their music collections. Still, this handset paved the way for today’s music phones, including those (like the Motorola Slvr and Razr V3i) that support iTunes.

Research In Motion continued its efforts to shed its strictly-business image with the consumer-friendly Pearl. This phone, with its slim design and SureType keyboard, looked the part. It went further than the 7100t, however: the Pearl was the first BlackBerry to include a camera and an audio/video player. Combine these multimedia features with BlackBerry’s excellent e-mail service, and you have one impressive device.

After months of speculation and rumors, Apple confirmed the news in January: The company does indeed plan to launch a cell phone. The device, which is expected to be available from AT&T/Cingular in June, will feature an innovative design: it lacks a numeric keypad. Instead, it will feature a touch-sensitive screen. The iPhone will also reportedly include a 2-megapixel camera, the ability to sync your iTunes collection to the phone, and it will run Mac OS X. Whew. We can’t wait to get a look at one.