Print
Motorola sold more than 50 million RAZR phones in its first year of release, making it the most popular clamshell cell phone of all time. The RAZR boasted a stylish design, super slim profile, and a few relatively uncommon features for its time, including an electroluminescent keypad.
Image Credit: Motorola
Other luxurious features included a 2.2-inch TFT LCD screen, 10MB of internal memory, MPEG-4 video playback, and an external color screen. Five years ago, this was the phone everyone wanted. And today? It means you're lame and woefully out of date.
Invented: 2005
Built by UTStarcom, the F-1000 was Vonage's first Wi-Fi phone, which meant that Vonage subscribers could make calls from any open hotspot.
Early units were buggy and a little bit difficult to configure, but even still, most considered the pairing of a Wi-Fi phone with Vonage to be a winning combination. The woohoo jingle? Not so much.
Invented: 2005
Skype rocks for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the ability to make free and low-cost phone calls all around the world. The downside? Being tethered to your PC. That all changed when phones for Skype were introduced.
Image Credit: Philips
In 2006, Skype announced the first cordless phones compatible with its VoIP software, including the Philips VOIP841 and Netgear's cordless phone. Cordless handsets were the logical next step for Skype, and gave cheapskates penny-pinchers a viable alternative to Vonage.
Invented: 2006
Image Credit: Belkin
Around the same time Skype announced the first batch of cordless phones for its VoIP software, the company also unveiled its first Wi-Fi phones, including one each from Belkin, Edge-Core, Netgear, and SMC. Each phone came with the Skype software preinstalled and could store contacts and display who was available to talk. To make a call, you just needed to be in range of an open access point.
Invented: 2006
No matter how you feel about Apple -- and trust us, we know how MPC readers feel -- the iPhone ranks as arguably the most important smartphone of all time.
A newcomer to the cell phone business, Apple took the mobile world by storm when it introduced the iPhone in June 2007. Much of the hype centered on the iPhone's touch interface, and while it wasn't the first smartphone to sport a touchscreen, it was the first one to get it right. Not only was the interface mostly responsive, navigation was a breeze.
Image Credit: Apple
The iPhone also played a integral role in promoting the mobile app market, and espeically in the success of Apple's App Store, which surpassed the 3 billion download mark in the first week of 2010.
Not without its weaknesses, the iPhone received criticism for its short battery life, proprietary battery, and tight integration with iTunes. Nevertheless, Time Magazine dubbed the iPhone the "Invention of the Year," and we'd have to agree.
Invented: 2007
Apple wasn't the only one hot to trot in the mobile market, Google wanted to jump in the ring too. But instead of developing a handset of its own, Google continued to work on its open-source Android platform, now the fastest growing mobile OS on the planet.
Image Credit: T-Mobile
HTC's Dream, or T-Mobile G1 as it's known in the U.S. market, became the first smartphone to run Google's OS, prompting many to wonder if this would be the iPhone killer. The G1 didn't live up to that designation, but it did introduce the world to Android and Google's Android Marketplace.
Thanks to the Android platform, the G1's greatest attribute is its open nature. It didn't take long for modders to start churning out third-party ROMs to address the handset's shortcomings, like the inability to install apps to an SD card instead of the paltry amount of internal memory.
Invented: 2008
Comments are closed on this article
loondawg
June 16, 2010 at 2:22pm
This was probably a lot of people's first phone. (Plus it's got life in that it's a fun project to hack an old one into a working phone)
gbucknell
April 30, 2010 at 8:59am
You forgot one of the most important phones in TV History. More important than Batman's, Get Smart's, Fred Flinstone's, and Mike Brady's phone was the phone use by Captain Kirk on Star Trek. That communicator directly predicted AND influenced the creation of the cell phone universe that we all now live in.
gooberp
April 07, 2010 at 2:56pm
You'd think that since 1948, AT&T's cell network would have been upgraded at least a little since the days of it's first radio car phone. Based on my experience, it's not any different.
Queenof1
March 28, 2010 at 7:44pm
this was a great article! Brought back memories of my Strawberry Shortcake intercom phones :)
The Relic
March 28, 2010 at 5:00pm
Heh, I remember we had one of the Model 500 rotary phones back when I was a kid (this was the 60s and 70s). I still have one here (though unused; my desk phone is a replica Nick and Nora Charles phone).
Bizarre
March 27, 2010 at 8:42pm
wow, some hatin' for the RAZR! In my opinion a black V3 is still one of the cooler phones out there, and if you don't count spart phones, among the coolest. It hasn't aged much, and is still one of the thinnest phones out there, probably because it was the first to reach the reasonable limit of thin-ness in a non-flexible mobile device.
Slugbait
March 27, 2010 at 3:40pm
Personally, I was looking forward to seeing what would be written about the Nokia 8110...
kevintanner800
March 26, 2010 at 12:44pm
Why is the Iphone in there twice? the Iphone was/is not game changing, the only thing it did is prove how many retards are alive in the world.
festiva_man
March 26, 2010 at 10:46am
Good article but the see transparent telephone was always my favorite. I loved seeing the inner workings of things like that.
jbelkin
March 26, 2010 at 9:48am
That ubiquitous infomercial started people realizing that a phone did not need to be square or rectangularly shaped AND that a phone could be cheap - so cheap it's a free giveaway ...
Did the 1990's Nokia you showed had the changing faceplate?, I think that was a game changer also ... the Nokia candybar phone?
tri8gman
March 26, 2010 at 9:12am
I don't really see Apple slogans and "power user" being appropriate in the same paragraph.
Apple doesn't market to Power Users. :P
ushim6
March 26, 2010 at 7:49am
It's perfect for me. I'm in a family plan, still have 1.5 years of contract left, so I just bought the danged thing. No need for a data plan since I'm on campus all the time, blanketed in wifi, and AT&T can't make me since it's unsubsidised.
I may get data sometime in the future, but honestly it's only on the road I miss the data connection, but I always do have SMS to make me feel more connected.
JoetheMobster
March 26, 2010 at 7:42am
creepy, when I was a child the family phone was just like that Western 500 rotary phone...and my mother had it on a doiley that looked exactly like the one in the photo!
SpazzAttack
March 26, 2010 at 4:10am
Still using my Motorola V3M. I very rarely text, so I don't need a full keyboard. Mine has the extended battery, so I don't need to charge it often. And it still makes phone calls, too!!!
Pball1224
March 25, 2010 at 11:33pm
First Car phone at $15, a bargain by today's standards? Uh, did inflation cross your mind? $15
in 1948 is equivalant to $135 today. I don't call that a bargain.Oh, and the Western Electric 1500 (touchtone) is nearly IDENTICAL to the phone on my desk at work, except mine is black, and includes a volume knob on the handset. The whole office of ~2800 employees uses them. I can hear the gasp as this is read. But it does exactly what I need it to do... make phone calls.
davisman123
March 25, 2010 at 11:17pm
I was surprised that the NGAGE wasn't on this list. While it wasn't the greatest phone or game system, it was way ahead of its time in terms of combining both worlds. It deserves a place on this list.
deadsolid
March 25, 2010 at 10:17pm
Where is the fucking Banana phone???
Why are there two iPhones on the list? Apple didn't do shit with the 3Gs.
Danthrax66
March 25, 2010 at 9:14pm
the iphone is a useless piece of crap just like all apple products.
greencpu
March 25, 2010 at 6:36pm
no football phone?!?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWtx9JwNzmY
FOR SHAME
excelguru
March 25, 2010 at 8:02pm
Damn, you beat me to it on the football phone.
And what about E.T.'s wind-powered, saw-blade phone with the umbrella antenna? I mean, that damned thing could reach OUTER SPACE, for crying out loud! How cool was THAT!?
Paul_Lilly
March 25, 2010 at 8:47pm
Damn, can't believe I overlooked E.T.'s homebrewed phone. Very nice suggestion.
-Paul Lilly
