The Golden Age of Motorola Cell Phones
Remember your first cell phone? It was probably a Motorola.
By Benj Edwards
Forty-five years ago this month —April, 1973 — Motorola engineer Marty Cooper placed the first cellular telephone call, ushering in a new era of mobile communications. Cooper used a prototype handheld “brick” phone, placing a call from a street in New York City to his rival Joel Engel at Bell Labs.
In 1983, ten years after that groundbreaking call, Cooper’s prototype handset phone commercially hit the market as the DynaTAC 8000x. In the decade and a half after that influential product launch, Motorola continued to innovate dramatically in the mobile phone space.
With this anniversary in mind, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at a handful of Motorola’s most interesting and innovative cell phones from this “golden age.” The company released dozens of mobile phone models during its first 15 years in the cell phone business, so this is only a brief overview. If you have any memories of classic Motorola cell phones, I would love to read them in the comments.
Motorola DynaTAC 8000x (1983)
Between Cooper’s fateful test call in 1973 and the launch of the DynaTAC 8000x, Motorola used the time not only to streamline the design of the world’s first completely handheld mobile phone but also to build out the necessary infrastructure (cell towers) that made widespread cell service possible in the first place. Upon its release, the DynaTAC 8000X became a cultural icon in films and media as a must-have accessory for the 1980s businessman. Due to its high price at launch ($3,995!) it also became a status symbol for the wealthy. The analog DynaTAC landed in a big way, despite a talk time of less than an hour, and Motorola kept refining the DynaTAC series for years to come.
Motorola DynaTAC 8500X (1987)
Motorola released at least seven revisions of the landmark DynaTAC series all the way up into the mid-1990s. This model, the 8500X from 1987, improved on the earlier DynaTAC with improved battery life and a slightly sleeker design. It also came in a stylish dark gray color.
Motorola 4500x (1988)
The DynaTAC series faced serious drawbacks early on due to limitations of 1980’s battery technology. Engineers found it difficult to squeeze more than an hour’s worth of talk time into the DynaTAC’s small frame, while power limitations meant the handset’s transmission range wasn’t that great.
Enter the Motorola transportable series of telephones with large battery-brick bases and corded handsets. They could operate for far longer on a single charge and also use a larger external antenna for a greater reception/transmission range. Many customers used them as car phones while plugged into cigarette lighter jacks.
Motorola MicroTAC 9800X (1989)
In 1989, Motorola upped the status-symbol ante by releasing the first “flip phone,” the MicroTAC 9800x. At the time of its release, the MicroTAC was the lightest and smallest cell phone on the market. Improvements in battery technology and circuit miniaturization cut its general size and weight, and the key innovation of making part of the phone fold up while not in use made it almost perfectly pocketable. For the first time, a cell phone could also completely hide in a purse.
Motorola 2900 (1994)
By the early 1990s, Motorola still produced a line of car phones (like the 2900), which many people called “bag phones” at the time. The bag contained a transceiver and battery, and the user talked into a much lighter corded handset. One could carry the bag on one’s shoulder, but its bulk mostly limited its use to inside cars.
Even in the 1990s, bag phones remained popular because of their longer talk times and transmission range. Those features proved important in the days when cellular coverage wasn’t nearly as widespread as it is today.
Motorola Flare (1995)
The 1995 Motorola Flare was one of the firm’s first lifestyle phones marketed at average consumers — beyond the usual business customer base. It was also one of Motorola’s first “candybar” style phones, which placed the entire phone in a tiny, compact handheld unit.
By this point in the 1990s, digital GSM cell networks started to come online and take over from the earlier 1G analog cell phone standard. GSM allowed for higher frequency transmission (smaller antennas), digital audio compression techniques (more traffic per tower), and also privacy from casual radio eavesdropping.
Motorola StarTAC 85 (1996)
We’ve already seen Motorola’s first flip phone, but the StarTAC 85, released in 1996, further shrunk the folding concept into the first “clamshell” cell phone design. Once folded, the 3.1-ounce StarTAC proved almost unbelievably tiny and pocket-sized. Imitators followed, and the clamshell design became a common cell phone option until the rise of smartphones about ten years later.
For PCMag staffers, a Motorola phone was our first introduction to the world of cell phones. Do you remember your first phone? Here are ours.
Read more: “The Golden Age of America Online”
Originally published at www.pcmag.com.
