From the Razr to the Blackberry: these are the most iconic mobile phones in history

Cellphones have really evolved over the years! From giant bricks you had to lug around to teeny-tiny pocket sized machines, it seems like we've seen it all. Undoubtedly, phone designers will surprise us once again though! Click on to take a walk down cellphone memory lane!

The DinaTAC 8000X can be considered the first mobile phone in history that could be held in one hand. Its commercialization began in March 1983. A full charge took roughly 10 hours, and it offered 30 minutes of talk time.

It was priced at $3,995 in 1984, its commercial release year, equivalent to $10,420 in 2021.

It owed its design to other phones that were previously carried inside vehicles. Despite its large dimensions and 4.3 kilos, it was a portable device. The phone had a red LED display and a standard 12-digit numeric keypad.

Motorola's DynaTAC series was succeeded by the MicroTAC series in 1989 and then, by the StarTAC series. The first of its models came out on January 3, 1996 and it was a real revolution, being the first clamshell mobile phone.

In 2005, 'PC World' listed it at number 6 in the ranking of 'The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Last 50 Years'.

The Alcatel One Touch Easy, was so popular that it remained strong in the market since it came out in 1997 until 2002. It could be purchased in many colors and triumphed, above all, among the teenage public.

A real best seller, this mobile phone had the most advanced batteries of its time and, in addition, it could be purchased in a range of colors. It had a semi-clamshell design.

That same year, Ericsson brought to the market a luxury version of the T18 and, in it, Ericsson incorporated Lithium-Ion polymer technology for the first time, which provides a more powerful battery.

Famous for being ‘indestructible’,  the Nokia 3310, was launched in the first quarter of the year 2000. It has been one of the most profitable phones in the history of the Finnish brand, with more than 100 million units sold.

It was the first mobile phone with a color screen. It coincided with the time when Ericsson and Sony merged, so it was relaunched in 2002 as the Sony Ericsson T68i with a change of colors, but with similar features.

The BlackBerry 6210 was the first device of the Canadian brand with that large screen format with an infinite keyboard that was so popular among the public, especially with executives.

It was launched in 2003 and patented a style that was preserved until its end. The so-called BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) synchronized corporate email accounts with mobile terminals, receiving their emails in them.

This phone has gone down in history as the best-selling mobile phone of all time with 250 million units between 2003 and 2007. It was the time when the brand dominated the mobile phone market and to this was added an inexpensive device, with a simple and user-friendly design.

This was one of the first mobile phones 3G technology. It had a rotating camera, with a resolution of up to 1 .3 megapixels. It also had a lot of storage for the time (7 megabytes) and could read Memory Stick Duo cards that expanded it up to 16 GB.

Released in 2004 this phone stood out for its flat nickel keyboard that had no buttons. It was one of the most popular mobile phones of the time and lasted, in the Latin American market, until 2010.

This phone incorporated an iTunes music player with an interface similar to that of iPod music players. Long-awaited by the public, it ended up punctuated by criticism: limited for downloading songs and a low-quality camera.

The most emblematic mobile phone of the South Korean brand. About 10 million units were sold by 2007. Its attractive and elegant design, that opened with a slide and  lit its touch buttons when it opened, captivated the masses.

This was the year of the appearance of smartphones and so, it was one of Nokia's last successes. Inside it was a compact device, with a large screen and a small keyboard, as well as two cameras.

It was a real revolution in the mobile phone market. The first-generation iPhone was released in the United States in June 2007 and was named 'Invention of the Year' by Time magazine.

Only a year later, the iPhone 3G would appear, reaching 70 countries around the world by the end of 2008. For the first time, we found ourselves with a high-quality capacity touch screen that totally changed the experience of mobile telephony.

Image: Nathana Reboucas/Unsplash

In the midst of the explosion of smartphones, a phone with a keyboard emerged. However, it stood out for his controversial design that had a circular crystal screen with a resolution of 16 million colors and its casing, which opened in a circular way, was made of stainless steel.

Marketed under both names and also popularly known as Google Phone or GPhone, it was put on the market in October 2008 by HTC and, like the iPhone, it already had a touch screen, although it also had an analog keyboard that unfolded slide mode. It was the first smartphone to include Google's Android operating system.

True to its style and despite the smartphone ‘boom’, BlackBerry continued betting on its Curve line, among which was this model. It was the first version to include a track pad and with a TFT type screen.

It is worth noting the arrival of the iPhone 4, because there was a change in the device that determined the style of phone that the different models of Apple would carry from then on. Unlike previous versions, it had a less rounded shape and a stronger glass-based casing.

iPhone needed a rival in the smartphone world and that was where the Galaxy S range from the South Korean brand Samsung emerged. The letter S refers to the term 'Supersmart'.

Manufactured by HTC, it is another of the great mobile phones that Google brought to the market. It was in January 2010 and it was also tactile, although it also had physical buttons and a trackball.

The family of the author of 'Blade Runner', considered suing Google for the name chosen for the Nexus 6 model, the same as the androids that appear in the book.

Sony Ericsson also wanted to join the smartphone world and, among the models it brought to the market, the Xperia Play stood out because it was the first phone to have PlayStation Certification and the only one with buttons dedicated exclusively to video games.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note range stood out because of its resemblance with tablets. They had an optical pen (S Pen) to move around it and, therefore, had functions designed for use such as creating notes or drawing, just as it can be done on tablets.

It was the successor of the HTC One X, which was released just a year earlier, but did not have the desired commercial success. The efforts on this new version paid off and more than 5 million units were sold worldwide in just two months.

LG opted to bring to the market the first curved and flexible smartphone in history. It featured a 6-inch POLED panel which was quite a breakthrough at the time.

This range of phones was born from the merger of Google and Motorola and has similar specifications to the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Nexus 4. They were enormously successful in the market thanks to their affordable price and good quality.

In 2015 Samsung released this phone with a risky design, in which the screen of its smartphone cascaded down its curved edges. It didn’t convince many users, so the company ended up going back to flat screens.

Motorola's latest bet in the smartphone market was the Moto Z, which was released in 2016. A phone that stood out for its thinness and for its HD resolution. Unlike others, its reader recognizes fingerprints no matter how it is held.

Although Apple is not one to change its designs, it did change slightly in 2017 with its iPhone X and a notched screen that became a new success for the company. It included a dual rear camera with improved depth sensor and a facial unlocking system known as Face ID.

Motorola opted for the return of its legendary Razr in 2019 with a very curious smartphone whose design includes the fact that it is foldable. It was a very interesting update to the Motorola Razr V3 from 2004.