What was some of your first cell phones...before the iPhone?

[DelMac]

Ok, I geeked out way too much tracking down pics of these phones (I find these types of threads fun) Before my iPhone 6, 5, 4S, 3GS and aside from the 1st nokias that everyone had, here they are (except for a Blackberry 7100g, ugh hated that one):

 

[macfoxpro]

image

dang!!!!

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Too many phones to mention but these were probably my favorites pre iPhone

Nextel i95 - beep beep CLASSIC

Treo 680 - man I loved the Treo phones

Good times

WOW, I cannot believe I forgot about my Treo 750 I think. Well, actually I had a 500 or 600 series before that. Dang, I loved those Treos!!

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this little bad boy was one sweet ass dumb phone.

ha ha!!!

 

[thatappleguytoday]

dang!!!!

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WOW, I cannot believe I forgot about my Treo 750 I think. Well, actually I had a 500 or 600 series before that. Dang, I loved those Treos!!

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ha ha!!!

Yea man those were some classic fun phones - first phones I really used for work and play

Oh, can't forget about this beauty

 

[Maggiep67]

candy crush aint got nothing on the snake game I played on this bad boy.

Image

.

That was my first one too!!!!

 

[b3av3r]

Nokia 5165
Motorola SLVR
Pantech Duo (really loved this phone probably would have kept it for a long time if smartphones didn't get so popular and functional)
Palm Treo 750 (horrible phone, kept it less than 3 months before switching to iPhone 3G)

 

[indychris]

Palm was my primary goto. Startac before that. Don't remember prior to that.

 

[libu]

Paid over $1,000 for a Motorola V3 RAZR Unlocked phone when it was the hottest thing since sliced bread.

It is was the "IT" phone before the iPhone came a long.

 

[PowerBook-G5]

I shudder at the thought of my first phone. All that I remeber is that it was a flipper - and I don't even want to remember the humanity of that!

 

[replaced]

Motorola V60 - monochrome screen.
Motorola RAZR v3 - The phone would get really hot and would drain all of it's battery after 15 mins using WAP to surf the web. It was mostly text and only a few websites displayed properly. Loading up a webpage could take up a full minute.
Iphone 4
Iphone 6+

 

[scorpio1973]

I love this thread! I've had way too many different phones. Let's see what I can remember:

Motorola - This was my 1st cell phone. It was giant and the battery lasted like 30 minutes. Also, had a Razr or two.

Nokia - A couple different ones.

Sidekick - 2, 3, ID, & LX (Loved these!)

NEC 515 - Flip phone

T-Mobile G1

Blackberry - Pearl, Curve, Flip, and Storm

iPhone - Original, 3GS, 4 (black & white), 4S, 5, 5S, & 6+

 

[supertomtom]

First was the Panasonic GD90 in the 90's

Then it was the Motorola StarTAC

Followed by O2 mini in the mid 2000's

Then HTC right before iPhone was announced

Then it's iPhone ever since

 

[AlphaDogg]

Mine was a Motorola RAZR V3XX on Cingular, which became AT&T almost immediately after I got the phone

 

[noiceT]

Nokia 5190! This one started it for me. Goodbye to pagers.

 

[scaredpoet]

I had that Samsung blade and paid about $300 for it I believe. it was my last phone with sprint. I went with Cingular when the original iPhone came out. never looked back.

Yeah, I hung on to Sprint for seven years. They actually weren't bad way back, considering that they were the only thing close to being a nationwide cellular network in the beginning. Verizon wasn't Verizon; it was Bell Atlantic, PrimeCo, Airtouch and GTE, all serving different sections and offering very limited local cell service. And what we know know as AT&T was very different, too.

But I left Sprint after they bought Nextel. I knew that was a disaster in the making. Went with AT&T and stayed there for 7 years, and now I'm on T-Mobile.

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Nokia 5190! This one started it for me. Goodbye to pagers.

Oh God pagers! That could be a whole different thread for those of us had those.

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Palm Treo 750 (horrible phone, kept it less than 3 months before switching to iPhone)

Hey, it wasn't a smartphone back then without random reboots at least once a day, and crashes that required a battery pull.

 

[USF813]

It was a Nokia something or another. I used it to text vote during the first season of American Idol!

 

[Alimar]

My First Cell Phone (OKI - built into the briefcase - 1989) & First iPhone (2007)...

 

[the caveman]

A long line of nokia s60 smartphones before smartphones were cool. You were unique in a sense, with full length movies on your sd card while everyone else was still rocking lg chocolates and crap of that ilk

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Yeah, I hung on to Sprint for seven years. They actually weren't bad way back, considering that they were the only thing close to being a nationwide cellular network in the beginning. Verizon wasn't Verizon; it was Bell Atlantic, PrimeCo, Airtouch and GTE, all serving different sections and offering very limited local cell service. And what we know know as AT&T was very different, too.



But I left Sprint after they bought Nextel. I knew that was a disaster in the making. Went with AT&T and stayed there for 7 years, and now I'm on T-Mobile.

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Oh God pagers! That could be a whole different thread for those of us had those.

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Hey, it wasn't a smartphone back then without random reboots at least once a day, and crashes that required a battery pull.

S60 os was very stable and nible. Did not require reboots and all.

 

[scaredpoet]

Slightly related topic: Back in the pre-iPhone days, was anyone else a complete geek like I was, and used a USB or serial cable to tether their laptop to their phone for internet access?

This was my last pre-Mac laptop back in 2006. When I travelled I would use a not-always supported feature called QNC to get my phone to act as a modem. Pre-3G, it worked like a 14.4K modem. You even had to dialup an ISP to get internet access.

Apparently at some point I also had a Blackberry 7130e on Verizon, even though I don't remember it.

 

[Tekzilla]

My history of cell phones pre iPhone 3G and on is short...

Sanyo 5300 on Sprint

Samsung A900 on Sprint

 

[adamtarrence]

My timeline:

 

[mightyjabba]

Slightly related topic: Back in the pre-iPhone days, was anyone else a complete geek like I was, and used a USB or serial cable to tether their laptop to their phone for internet access?

When I lived in Japan, I bought a Color Zaurus with my first paycheck in 1996. It was the first PDA with a TFT color screen, but it also had a 2400 baud modem (darned slow even in 1996). Combine that baby with the phone jacks that were built into public telephones and you could access the internet extremely slowly on the go. Well, whenever you stopped by a phone booth, that is. It also had a camera which took really crappy photos (see below). This isn't a thumbnail -- that's the full-res photo.

Later, I had a variety of data cards and the like before they were ever available in the US, which allowed me to get online on my PDA or computer almost anywhere. Having gone through stuff like this really makes me appreciate what we have now.

 

[terraphantm]

Slightly related topic: Back in the pre-iPhone days, was anyone else a complete geek like I was, and used a USB or serial cable to tether their laptop to their phone for internet access?

Image

This was my last pre-Mac laptop back in 2006. When I travelled I would use a not-always supported feature called QNC to get my phone to act as a modem. Pre-3G, it worked like a 14.4K modem. You even had to dialup an ISP to get internet access.

Apparently at some point I also had a Blackberry 7130e on Verizon, even though I don't remember it.

I have. Miss those days when carriers didn't really care about unauthorized tethering.

 

[Gmcube]

I was later than most on getting a cell phone, I've only had iphones. Started on the 3G, on the 4 now, 6 on the way.

 

[lordofthereef]

First smartphone was a blackberry pearl. I actually loved the thing, and it could do the web quite well for what it was at the time.

First phone ever was one of those Nokias with the swappable faceplates. I know there were about two million models, but they were all basically the same damn thing lol.

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When I lived in Japan, I bought a Color Zaurus with my first paycheck in 1996. It was the first PDA with a TFT color screen, but it also had a 2400 baud modem (darned slow even in 1996). Combine that baby with the phone jacks that were built into public telephones and you could access the internet extremely slowly on the go. Well, whenever you stopped by a phone booth, that is. It also had a camera which took really crappy photos (see below). This isn't a thumbnail -- that's the full-res photo.

Later, I had a variety of data cards and the like before they were ever available in the US, which allowed me to get online on my PDA or computer almost anywhere. Having gone through stuff like this really makes me appreciate what we have now.

For a phone from 96 I would say that is rather great...

 

[l3uddz]

My first phone was the Nokia 3210 however my favourite "old" phone was probably the Samsung D500:

Used to use the flashlight religiously when me and my mates were trekking in the dark / rolling doobs lol