Looking back on 40 years of the cell phone
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Martin Cooper invented the first cell phone (Photo: Rico Shen)
Mobira Talkman, NMT450 portable car phone, 1984 (Photo: Nokia)
Mobile phone evolution, from left to right: Motorola 8900X-2, Nokia 2146 orange 5.1, Nokia 3210, Nokia 3510, Nokia 6210, Ericsson T39, HTC Typhoon
A Motorola DynaTAC 8000X from 1984. This phone has an early British Telecom badge and primitive red LED display (Photo: Redrum0486)
Mobira Cityman, NMT900 handportable, 1987 (Photo: Nokia)
A Motorola MicroTAC 9800X with Red LED display 1989
Motorola International 3200 compared to a 2G Nokia phone (Photo: Volker Artmann)
Ericsson R380, is considered to be the first smartphone, released in 2000 (Photo: Ericsson)
Original Blackberry (image: Shiny Things)
From the Qualcomm QCP-2700 (1997) to the iPhone 4S (2011) (Photo: Ben Schumin)
Selection of some the first generation analogue phones released during the 80's (Images: University of Salford)
The original "bricks" (Image: University of Salford)
First generation of analogue phones released during the 80's (Images: University of Salford)
First generation of analogue phones released during the 80's (Images: University of Salford)
First generation of analogue phones released during the 80's (Images: University of Salford)
Some of the early analogue phones released during the 80's and 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Some of the 1G analogue phones released during the 80's and 90's (Images: University of Salford)
First generation of analogue phones released during the 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of some of the first 2G cell phones from the 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of some of the first 2G cell phones from the 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of some of the first 2G cell phones from the 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of some of the first 2G cell phones from the 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of some of the first 2G cell phones from the 90's (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of 2G cell phones from the 1991 -2006 (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of 2G cell phones from the 1991 -2006 (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of 2G cell phones from the 1991 -2006 (Images: University of Salford)
Selection of 2G cell phones from the 1991 -2006 (Images: University of Salford)
40 years ago the first cellular phone was invented by Martin Cooper of Motorola ... and it was almost the size of a shoe box
Article Summary
This year marks 40 years since the first public cellular phone call was made by Martin Cooper of Motorola. This mobile phone was a massive device by today's standards – weighing two and a half pounds (1.15 kg) and all of 10 inches long it could only be used for 20 minutes before the battery died.
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