• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Post a pic of your first cell phone.

1796081320_055f0296d2.jpg


and then some Kyocera candybar, then a couple terrible LG flip phones... then the enV ... then the Droid ... next, hopefully, the Galaxy Nexus.
 
Okay i am sure this question has been ask before or these two questions but here goes,
What was your first cellphone and what was your first android/smartphone device?
 
1st cellphone: An Erickson, forgot the model number long ago. Roughly the size of a large candy bar, as thick as it was wide, heavy, with a rubberized antenna sticking out of the top. Made a big lump in my pocket, but it was small and state-of-the-art at the time - over 17 years ago.

1st Android: The original G1, ordered within minutes of becoming available.
 
First cellphone..
That was some awful motorola timeport 7389... a horrible bit of kit, with the one redeaming feature that it had an irda port which I could use to sync with my Psion 5mx (and occasionally would send data if I was very very still)

First smartphone... well, that would be the MDA Compact, which was a rebadged i-mate Jam.

No wifi, and GPRS only (no 3g either) but it was amazing what the fella could do. Only thing was it was windows mobile (2003?) so if the battery went completely flat you had to reinstall all your apps/settings. Fortunately I had a copy of Sprite backup that kicked in if the battery level went below 20% and took a full backup of the device to the sd card.

First Android smarphone? That would be the T-Mobile Pulse (which was a rebadged Huawei 8220) ... a great little phone and very hackable
 
Last edited:
My first official cellphone was this black Cingular flip phone, this was 1998-1999, maybe even 1997. The phone was as basic as you could get. Its features included a calculator, note pad , alarm clock, three installed games and a camera that 99.999% of the time did not work, no video mode. It had the ability to access the web through the old wan system but i couldn't get it work
The first smartphone phone I had that allowed web searching, down loading and buying stuff was the Motorola krave
 
Boy I forgot about this corner of AF...Her;s a new Cellphone Timeline video thst goew further back and up todate than a prior posted timeline.

 
A Telital 210e on a "Pay as you Talk" pre pay plan on Vodafone UK. I got it for Christmas from my then g/friend now my wife. I have never had a different mobile number (or other half) since :) It had an unscrewable telescopic airiel, my first ever hack was to give it a flashing led one when I had a call.
telit-model-gm210e.jpg
 
Nokia_5185i.jpg


Nokia 5185i. (CDMA/AMPS dual-band) this will forever remain the one i held onto the longest, even if i dabbled in other phones off and on during its lifespan. it also remains the one that lasted the longest, both at work (in 2009-10) as well as the usual drops, falls, and antennas being ripped out too hard (unlike its TDMA/AMPS sibling, the 5165, the '85i had a retractable antenna inside the nub)

during my retro period, when i attempted to gain back familiar (and older, more reliable stuff) usability after a ton of issues regarding more modern OSs and devices (fancy color screen flips like the RAZR V3 had horrible signal, barely any stability, and don't get me started on Windows Vista) i went back to the 1990s. using Windows 98SE, a PIII Deskpro, this cell phone (it did everything i needed it to, and got the best signal) and of course, i was dead set against HDTV because CRTs lasted longer and had better black levels and cost 1/4 the cost. I even went so far as to eschew EFI-equipped cars and ensured my sedan had a reliable, tried and true, no need for a college degree to fix, carburetor.

the Nokia 5185i is or was with Verizon back in 1996. today, they will refuse to activate it due to it being non-e911 compliant. me being a bit of a tinfoil hat type at the time, as well as against medicine and healthcare, i wouldn't have a modern phone for that e911 complacency. watched enough NCIS to warrant legitimate fear over being mistakened or labeled a suspect and being tracked by my phone. but in 2008-9 it was a dilemma. how do i get around Verizon's law? since it was also AMPS (which got shut down in 2009) this limited my carrier selection greatly (Verizon then seemed to be the only one with the e911 rule, and AMPS was carrier independent which if working, would have allowed me to use AT&T (then Cingular) or another) i could use another carrier without the rule, alas it got decommissioned in 2009, so i had a dead end.

found out from Google i could use a MVNO like Page Plus to get around this rule. Page Plus uses the Verizon Wireless network, and if you don't tell them the model phone you're activating, and know the NAM programming yourself, it's quite simple to use this phone even today. and i did for a while. that is, until the battery could no longer hold a charge for more than 4 hours standby, or 5 minutes talk time. when the boss decided he had had enough of not being able to reach me due to this, and with replacement batteries for such an archaic device impossible to find, i was forced to use an iPhone he got me, which was my first smartphone. it would be the reliability and excellent battery life and polished UI that got me into Apple for the next few years. i tried
Android in 2010, but the newest version was either FroYo or Gingerbread, neither of which could hold a candle to iOS 4 and 5 as far as speed, stability went. it would also be this iPhone that restored my faith in modern tech and got me out of this retro phase.
 
Funny how the older-generation phones lasts longer than most if today's devices! I dont think they sold "refurbs" back on the 90s because nothing broke as fast as they do today!

Always wanted one of these.

images
 
My dad had a pager. but i couldn't justify the price for service for a device merely capable of one-way texting.

Smartphones have short lifespans only because the consumers have spoken and they have to have something new every two years for some reason. i'm sure the HTC Dream is still plenty functional, damn #consumerism

i did, during my retro phase, want to try one of these--think it was the very first BlackBerry


rim_850.jpg
 
Can't believe I haven't a post here already!

My first was the Nokia 2140 (first model with that name!):
noki2140.gif
Like this one only without the Orange square. Only phone I ever had whose battery life exceeded spec: the spec claimed up to 18 hours standby, but with very low use you could get 23 hours before it shut down! ;)

Followed by:

Nokia 6150 (nice phone, poorly built. Replaced within the year)

Motorola Timeport L7089 (tri-band, though you had to change manually between US and European!)

Ericsson T68 (tiny, amazing battery life, ultimately victim of water damage):

Motorola RAZR V3 (before everyone had one.):

HTC Desire ('nuff said!)

HTC One (M7)

Prior to the Desire there were also Palm devices running in parallel for those things the phones didn't do (Palm V, Vx and T3). I still have the 2 Motorolas and the Desire, in case I feel like going retro (though the Timeport's battery would struggle to get through the day now).
 
I still have that big TAC Plus. it's in its leather bag and has the user manual and everything. sadly it's useless today; hoped i could find some workaround to make two of 'em into a two-way radio/push to talk type system (seeing as the 900MHz band is of course, for anyone familiar, found on scanners and one could at one time eavesdrop on conversations taking place on AMPS handsets, which probably contributed to their demise somewhat) but i heard it was more trouble than it's worth and keep it as a momento.
 
I watch some old 1970s and 1960s TV series (such as Mission Impossible and Emergency!) and noticed some type of mobile phone inside an attache case, often with a rotary dial and antenna, or, in the case of Emergency!, a mobile phone with antenna inside a toolbox without dialer, assuming it's an auto-dial unit that dials the hospital (in the series).

What kind of phones are these? they appear to be mobile or cellular and on Emergency! at least, it's called a 'viaphone (sp?)'

the type i notice in attache cases doesn't seem to have a name, but most of the time when one shows up in a series, it's carried by the bad guy. anyone know what types of phones those are or were?
 
nickdalzell said:
I watch some old 1970s and 1960s TV series (such as Mission Impossible and Emergency!) and noticed some type of mobile phone inside an attache case, often with a rotary dial and antenna, or, in the case of Emergency!, a mobile phone with antenna inside a toolbox without dialer, assuming it's an auto-dial unit that dials the hospital (in the series).

What kind of phones are these? they appear to be mobile or cellular and on Emergency! at least, it's called a 'viaphone (sp?)'

the type i notice in attache cases doesn't seem to have a name, but most of the time when one shows up in a series, it's carried by the bad guy. anyone know what types of phones those are or were?
Click to expand...
http://www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Carphone8.htm

Cool stuff. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom