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SCR-194 and 195
Not quite what you would consider a mobile phone, the SCR-194 and 195 were the first portable AM radios, produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, NJ. Considered the first "walkie talkie," these devices weighed roughly 25 pounds and had a 5-mile range. They were widely used for infantry battalion and company intercommunication during World War II. -
SCR-300
Next came the SCR-300 radio transceiver, developed for the U.S. Military by Motorola. This time a portable FM radio, it weighed anywhere from 32 to 38 pounds with a 3-mile range. It replaced the SCR-194 and 195 with nearly 50,000 units used in World War II by Allied Forces -
"Handie Talkie"
Motorola produced the first "handie talkie" for the U.S., labeled SCR-536. 130,000 units were manufactured and used during the war. Back to AM, this handheld version shed the fat off the previous two transceivers, weighing only 5 pounds. But its land range was only 1-mile (3 miles over water). Moving away from military-grade portable radios, we get to the mobile radio telephones -
Mobile Telephone System (MTS)
Bell System introduced the first commercial mobile telephone service, called the Mobile Telephone System (MTS). The original equipment was large, weighing 80 pounds (not quite what you'd call mobile) with limited calling bands available from AT&T. The service wasn't cheap either—costing $30 a month (roughly $330 today) with additional per call charges. Not really intended for regular Joe Blows, these devices were used by utilities, truck fleet operators, and reporters. -
Mobile System A
Ericsson's Mobile System A (MTA) was the first partly automatic mobile system for automobiles. First used by Sweden, the unit weighed a whopping 88 pounds.
This is equivalent to about 300 iPhones! -
"Improved" Car Phones
With the adaption of Bell's newer pre-cellular Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS), auto owners saw lighter, more advanced mobile car phones with push buttons. This one by Motorola weighed 40 pounds, half as much of the original units from the '40s. -
The first true private mobile phone
With a prototype of the DynaTAC (DYNamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) portable phone, former Motorola Vice President Martin Cooper made the first private, practical mobile phone call in a non-vehicle setting. -
1G
1G refers to the first generation of wireless telephone technology, mobile telecommunications which was first introduced in 1980s and completed in early 1990s. It's Speed was up to 2.4kbps. It allows the voice calls in 1 country.
It used an Analog Signal. AMPS was first launched in USA in 1G mobile systems. Drawbacks to this generation were poor voice quality, phones had poor battery life, phone sizes were very large, limited capacity, and no security. -
First Commercial Mobile Phone
Motorola's DynaTAC cellular phone was made available to the public, weighing under 2 pounds, but costing nearly $4,000 (almost $9,000 today). It worked on AMPS, North America's first 1G analog service, launched first by Ameritech in Chicago. -
First flip phone
Next up was Motorola's MicroTAC, which introduced the first flip phone design. The hardware was place in a hinged section of the phone, reducing the phone's size when not in use. -
2G
2G technology refers to the 2nd generation which is based on GSM. It was launched in Finland in the year 1991. 2G network use digital signals. Its data speed was up to 64kbps. 2G enabled services such as text messages, picture messages and MMS (multimedia message), and It provided better quality and capacity. -
First 2G Phone
The Motorola International 3200 became the first hand-sized digital mobile phone that used 2G digitally encrypted technology -
Worlds first smart phone
Perhaps the world's first smartphone, IBM Simon was a mobile phone, pager, fax machine and PDA, all rolled into one. It included a calendar, address book, clock, calculator, notepad, email, gamers and a touchscreen with QWERTY keyboard. It originally sold for $899, which would be just over $1,300 nowadays. -
First Clamshell phone
Still shrinking the line of TACs, Motorola unveiled the first clamshell mobile phone with StarTAC. It improved the folding feature by collapsing in half, which is why it's called "clamshell"—because it resembles a clam opening and closing shut. It ran on 1G networks, but eventually crossed over into the world of 2G. -
First QWERTY Keyboard, Web browser phone
the Nokia 9000 Communicator was what really brought on the smartphone era. It was the first cell phone that could also be called a mini-computer (though it had limited web access). When opened, the longways clamshell design revealed an LCD screen and full QWERTY keyboard—the first on a mobile phone. -
First "non-antenna" phone
The Nokia 8810 was the first cell phone without an external antenna whip or stub-antenna, possibly paving the way for iPhones and DROIDs. -
3G
3G technology refers to third generation which was introduced in year 2000s. Data Transmission speed increased from 144kbps- 2Mbps. Typically called Smart Phones and featured increased its bandwidth and data transfer rates to accommodate web-based applications and audio and video files. 3G provided faster communication, send/receive large email messages, high speed web / more security, video conferencing / 3d gaming, TV streaming/ mobile TV. -
First Picture Message Phone
One of the most popular mobile phones in history was the Nokia 3210, with over 160 million sold. It was one of the first to allow picture messages, but only preinstalled ones like "Happy Birthda,y" and was one of the first to be marketing toward young people -
First Web Access Mobile Phone
Nokia's 7110 was the first cell phone to incorporate Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which gave mobile users web access for simple devices—a stripped-down, mostly text version, but a revolutionary step for mobile internet -
First Phone with GPS
GeoSentric was responsible for the world's first mobile phone and a GPS navigator integrated in one product—the Benefon Esc! It was splashproof, greyscale, and allowed users to load maps to trace position and movement. -
First Built-in Camera Phone
Sharp was first to the camera phone market with their J-SH04 (J-Phone), released by J-Mobile in Japan. It offered a mere 0.1 megapixel resolution. J-SH04 was the first commercially available cell phone to have an integrated CCD -
Camera Phone in the U.S.
the Sanyo 5300 from Sprint was the first camera phone sold in North America. -
The SideKick
One of the first phones to equip a fully functional web experience and integrate an instant messaging client (AIM) was the Danger Hiptop in 2002, later re-branded the T-Mobile Sidekick. -
Microsoft's Pocket PC Phone
Microsoft's Pocket PC Phone Edition started spreading across PDAs like wildfire, including the HP Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant, combining the best of the PDA with integrated wireless voice and data capabilities. It was a nice addition to the older Windows Mobile Classic devices, which essential ran a mini-version of Windows XP. -
The iPhone
In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone, a revolutionary touchscreen smartphone. It wasn't the first smartphone, but it was the first to get the user interface right, eventually adapting 3G technology (which was already available since 2001). -
First Google OS Smartphone
The first smartphone to run Google's Android OS was the HTC Dream slider smartphone. It featured a QWERTY keyboard, full HTML web browser, Gmail, YouTube and more, and paved the way for phones like the Nexus One and Motorola DROID. -
4G
4g provides high-speed data access, high quality streaming video, combination of Wi-Fi and wi-max, and is capable of providing 100mbps – 1gbps speed download. -
First 4G Smartphone
The HTC EVO 4G from Sprint was the first cellular phone to meet 4G standards, running on the WiMAX network. It was sold powered by Android 2.1 and had one of the largest touchscreen displays, an 8MP camera, HD video capture, HDMI output, Mobile Hotspot capability and HTC Sense.
