Cell phones have evolved immensely since 1983, both in design and function. From the Motorola DynaTAC, that power symbol that Michael Douglas wielded so forcefully in the movie “Wall Street”, to the iPhone 3G, which can take a picture, play a video, or run one of the thousands applications available from the Apple Store.
There are thousands of models of cell phones that have hit the streets between 1983 and now. In this video, they’ve picked a few of the more popular and unusual ones to take us through the history of this device that most of us consider a part of our everyday lives. They have tried, wherever possible, to include the most popular phones and the phones that were “firsts” for a particular feature, but may have missed out on our favorite phones due to the sheer number of models that are out there.
Mobile phones are just now beginning to be as vital to North Americans as they have been to Asians. You can always see what is coming to store shelves in the next six months to a year by looking at the models that are currently available in Japan.
North America also had a spotty 3G network that has only really been revamped recently in order to deal with increasing demands for faster loading speeds from mobile customers, whereas Asia and most of Europe have had proper 3G networks in place for some time.
This has led to a revolution in 3G phones from 2007 until now, with more due to come out in 2010. The list does not include any phones that were not portable handhelds. Car phones and some handhelds that were the size of a small briefcase were in use in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but since this is more about design than function they chose not to include them here.
