Cell phones! It seems that they have always been around, but a quick look back in time and you’d see that just 30 years or so ago, there were practically no mobile phones in use. How did people even get in touch back then?
Come to think about it, there is a reason why there are still thousands of phone booths across the United States, and back then it cost just a few pennies to make a phone call, so it was not impossible to make a call when you really needed it.
Car phones have also been around since around the mid-1940’s, but those were reserved for the more wealthy parts of the population.
‘WEIGHS ONLY 30 OUNCES’
Interestingly, the first commercially available cell phone made a debut only 32 years ago on March 13, 1984. The device was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, a handheld phone with a whopping $3,995 price tag ($9,000 inflation-adjusted dollars in 2014).
If you're wondering why the spread of cell phones took quite a while since then, the price is your first reason, as those devices were prohibitively expensive. The DynaTAC 8000X was also not exactly light weight - it tipped the scales at nearly 30 ounces (1.875lbs). In fact, the 8000X was so big and heavy that even its creators had given it the nickname "The Brick."
So big and heavy, it was nicknamed 'The Brick'
Another interesting fact about the first commercially available mobile phone is that it came some 10 years after phone inventor Martin Cooper made the first phone call in 1973. Take a look at the ads about it and let us know how would you feel if you still had to use such phones today.
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Victor, a seasoned mobile technology expert, has spent over a decade at PhoneArena, exploring the depths of mobile photography and reviewing hundreds of smartphones across Android and iOS ecosystems. His passion for technology, coupled with his extensive knowledge of smartphone cameras and battery life, has positioned him as a leading voice in the mobile tech industry.
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