Orbitel TPU 901 (1992)

Launched May 1992

Early mobile phones were terrible things. Not only were they big and clunky, but the old analogue networks that they ran on had terrible call quality, poor reliability and were very insecure. These early technologies such as AMPS, TACS and NMT became retrospectively known as “1G” – these days often forgotten and unloved.

By 1992 these 1G networks had been around for a decade or so and their weaknesses were becoming obvious. The market was ripe for something better, and in 1992 the world’s first 2G GSM networks came online. These digital networks had better call quality, security and required a smaller slice of the radio spectrum, and the first certified GSM phone to be available was the Orbitel TPU 901.

Orbitel TPU 901

A bulky device even by the standards of the time, the 901 had a handset connected to the base station via a curly cord and it weighed a whopping 2.1 kilos. It wasn’t a big seller – smaller and cheaper GSM phones were not far off – but the Orbitel TPU 901 does have the distinction of receiving the world’s first SMS text message with the words “Merry Christmas” sent in December the same year.

Orbitel was a British-based joint venture between Racal (who owned Vodafone) and Plessey which eventually ended up in the hands of Ericsson and effectively vanished in the noughties. Today the TPU 901 (and the car-mounted TPU 900) should still work on 900MHz GSM networks, if you ever managed to get your hands on one.

Orbitel TPU 901

Of course, the 901 was the first of many GSM phones on the market, more memorably the Motorola International 3200 launched later in 1992 with a memorable brick-like design that summed up the era perfectly. About a million others followed, but the Orbitel TPU 901 – largely forgotten today – was the very first.

Image credits:
Science Museum Group - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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Ericsson T68 (2001)

Introduced July 2001

By the middle of 2001 the golden age of mobile phone design was beginning. New features were added to phones rapidly, and every handset managed to look very different from rivals. The next few years would see a wave of innovation – but for Ericsson, 2001 was also its swansong as a mobile phone brand.

Ericsson had produced a range of successful (and mostly very compact) phones but was losing money on the operation in a big way. Despite this, Ericsson continued to launch great new products and the Ericsson T68m (usually referred to as just the “T68”) was one of them. A diminutive 84 gram device, it packed in more features than rivals to create a very desirable handset.

This Ericsson T68m has seen better days

One of the main selling points was Bluetooth – one of the first phones to feature this technology. It also had a colour screen, tri-band GSM, GPRS packet data, a WAP browser, predictive text, a bitmap editor and a bunch of included games. A camera – the MCA-25 CommuniCam – was available as a clip-on extra, again making it one of the first phones to feature that particular technology.

Not long after the launch of the T68, Ericsson merged their mobile phone business with Sony to create Sony Ericsson. The T68 received a slight cosmetic makeover and had a software update to become the Sony Ericsson T68i, the first phone to carry that branding. Eventually the camera add-on became a standard accessory, helping to popularise the idea of cameraphones.

Sony Ericsson T68i with Communicam

When it eventually arrived, the replacement for the T68 was the stylish T610 and there was a successful run of handsets after that. Today, used prices for the T68i and T68m are pretty healthy with really good ones selling for £100 or more, although sub-£50 is more common. The Communicam camera add-on is available as new old stock from £50 or more, all pretty healthy for a 20 year old feature phone..

Image credits:
The Norwegian Telecom Musuem via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Science Museum Group - CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

2019: things that didn’t quite make the cut

This year we’ve covered products debuting in 1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014. Here are a few of the things we missed.

It being Christmas and all a good place to start would be the Honeywell Kitchen Computer from 1969. Appearing in the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog of the same year, the so-called Kitchen Computer actually a Honeywell 316 minicomputer in a desktop case which was designed for laboratory environments, however the imaginative folks at Neiman Marcus thought the pedestal would make a great chopping board while the wife of the household used it to retrieve recipes. A great idea, but the Honeywell 316 was totally unsuited to that role and total sales of the Kitchen Computer were approximately nil, but the myth still persists even to this day.

Although a kitchen is a difficult and unwelcoming environment for a computer, GRiD Systems Corporation made computers that travelled into space. In 1989 they launched the GRiDPAD, the world’s first tablet computer. While not as friendly as a modern tablet, this MS-DOS machine sold relatively high numbers with a price ticket of about $3000 for one with software.

Honeywell 316 aka "Kitchen Computer" (1969) and GRiDPAD (1989)

Atari too were experimenting with portable computing, and in 1989 they launched the Portfolio (that we already covered) plus the Atari Stacy and Atari Lynx. The Stacy (styled STacy by Atari) was a portable version of the Atari ST which had proved a hit in the mid-80s but was now fading. However, the Stacy found a successful niche with musicians who liked the portability and the excellent MIDI support, even though Atari gave up on making it battery powered quite late into development and ended up gluing the battery compartment shut. At the other end of the scale was the Atari Lynx was a handheld gaming platform that was advanced for its day but struggled against the Nintendo Gameboy... however even today the Lynx has its fans and now and again new games appear for it.

Atari Stacy (1989) and Atari Lynx (1989)

Like Atari, Zenith Data Systems had been a pioneer of early microcomputers and they too were keen to jump on board the portable computer bandwagon. The Zenith MinisPORT (launched in 1989) was one of the smallest DOS-compatible computers made to that date, and it featured a highly unusual 2” floppy disk drive in order to keep the size down.

Zenith MiniSPORT (1989)

Sega was another stalwart of the gaming industry, in 1989 they launched the Sega Mega Drive (also known as the Genesis) that proved to be a massive hit in Europe and North and South America – although officially replaced by the Sega Saturn in 1995 the popularity of the Mega Drive continued. 30 years later and Sega revisited the platform with the Sega Mega Drive Mini. Skip another generation from the Saturn and you get the 1999 Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was an advanced machine with excellent 3D support, but it couldn’t compete against Sony’s Playstation 2 and it was Sega’s last mainstream games console.

Saga Mega Drive aka Genesis (1989) and Dreamcast (1989)

Back to 1989 again and we find a computing oddity in the SAM Coupé – an unusual machine that was compatible with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum with various enhancements such as a proper keyboard, floppy disk and more memory. It was a niche success against 16 and 32-bit rivals and it still has a dedicated following today. Don’t confuse the SAM Coupé with the Cozy Coupe though, this little plastic car for children was launched in 1979 and it would technically be one of the world’s best-selling cars if it was actually a real car.
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SAM Coupé (1989) and Cozy Coupe (1979)

Looping round one last time to 1989, and Motorola launched their iconic MicroTAC series of phones. This flip-phone design was much more compact than the DynaTAC that preceded it, and many versions of the MicroTAC were made for all the disparate analogue and digital networks of the early 1990s. The design evolved over the years, and versions of the MicroTAC stayed in production until 1996. One of the MicroTAC’s spiritual successors might be the tiny Ericsson T28, the world’s smallest mobile phone when it was launched in 1999 weighing just 83 grams. Ultimately both the MicroTAC and T28 started a trend for mobile phones to be smaller and lighter, which is something we seem to have lost along the way..

Motorola MicroTAC (1989) and Ericsson T28 (1999)

That’s it for 2019. Next year we look to cover diverse topics such as the Acorn Atom, Epson MX-80, Squarial and Pac-Man plus many other things. See you on the other side!

Image credits

Honeywell 316: Scott Beale via Flickr
GRiDPAD: Association WDA via Flickr
Atari Stacy: Perfect Circuit Audio via Wikimedia Commons
Atari Lynx: Pete Slater via Flickr
Zenith MiniSPORT: Kris Davies via Wikimedia Commons
Sega Mega Drive: Barité Videojuegos via Flickr
Sega Dreamcast: Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons
SAM Coupé: Simon Owen via Wikimedia Commons
Cozy Coupe: Nick via Flickr
Motorola MicroTAC: Redrum0486 via Wikimedia Commons
Ericsson T28: The Norwegian Telecom Museum via Wikimedia Commons

Ericofon (1956)

General launch 1956

Launched to the general public 60 years ago, the iconic Ericofon telephone was symbolic of an era of growing prosperity and hope. Decades of economic hardship, starting with the Great Depression followed by World War II had left much of the world severely disrupted. In the mid-1950s, Europe was still rebuilding itself and food rationing in the UK didn't even end until 1954. But things were beginning to get better, and consumer goods were becoming much less utilitarian.

The Ericofon was a complete re-think about the industrial design of a telephone handset, which had pretty much settled into a two-piece affair with a handset sitting on a cradle, with the dialler, bell and everything else housed underneath. The snake-like design earned the Ericofon the nickname "Cobra" in some markets, but if that wasn't striking enough then the wide variety of bright colours (18 initially) that the device came in were certainly eye-catching.

One thing that made the Ericofon particularly desirable was that in many markets you were not allowed one. Monolithic old telephone carriers such as GPO in the UK and AT&T in the US simply didn't allow equipment to be connected to the network that didn't come from themselves.

Elegant design and exclusivity is often a recipe for success, and it seemed to be true for the Ericofon.

Variants of the phone were made for several different markets with two main types of case, and the phone's radical looks made it a favourite in movies and TV shows over the years. Between 1956 and 1982 some 2.5 million Ericofon handsets made in Sweden were sold around the world, with licensees and contractors making many more.

Modern reproductions of the Ericofon are available, but if you want an original one then prices vary from €50 or even less up to several hundred euro depending on type and condition. Ericsson went on to produce mobile phones such as the iconic R380, a business that was merged with Sony's to form Sony Ericsson in 2001 (the T610 being an example product), and which was finally bought out by Sony in 2012 when Ericsson left the consumer market behind for good.

Image credit: mollybob via Flickr

The ten most influential 3G and GSM phones.. ever?

2013 is Mobile Gazette's tenth anniversary, so it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at what we think are the ten most influential devices of the past decade (plus a bit more). Some are obvious, but we hope that a few of our choices will surprise you!

1. Apple iPhone 3G (2008) An obvious choice perhaps, but why would we choose the Apple iPhone 3G over the original 2007 iPhone? The answer is that the original iPhone was pretty dire - it didn't have 3G or GPS and you couldn't download third-party applications, which are all essentials in a modern smartphone, and it was often very slow as well. The 3G also started to sell in really significant numbers, quickly eclipsing the first-generation device and it really started to eat into the market share of its competitors.   Of course, the 2009 iPhone 3GS is even better, but the 3G was the first time the iPhone didn't have to come up with a string of excuses as to why vital features were missing.   In terms of influence.. well, it should be obvious. Although touchscreen smartphones existed long before the iPhone came out, Apple's offering popularised a certain look-and-feel of both the hardware and software which led to many copycats.. and many legal disputes with rivals. In terms of mobile phone history there is a very clean "before iPhone" and "after iPhone" period when you look at the products on the market.

2. Motorola RAZR V3 (2004) The Motorola RAZR V3 may be nearly a decade old, but it was one of the first handsets to sell purely on design rather than features. Following on what seemed to be the incredibly tiny Motorola StarTAC, the RAZR V3 was incredibly thin and carefully engineered from aluminium. And when it was launched it was very, very expensive.   The RAZR demonstrated that consumers wanted something more that just a brick to make phone calls on, and the handset was an enormous success. However, beneath the pretty exterior was a pretty dreadful handset which put a lot of consumers off. In the end, the RAZR nearly killed Motorola as the firm kept trying to remix the same tired old formula instead of innovating, as a result Motorola eventually lost its independence and is now a subsidiary of Google.

3. Nokia N95 (2007) The Nokia N95 and it's successor, the N95 8GB competed directly against early iPhones, but came with 3.5G data, GPS and a first-rate camera plus access to a large library of third-party applications.. all the things that the original iPhone lacked.   The relatively large QVGA display wasn't a touchscreen, but it was a lot better than most devices on the market. This combination of features created a new class of mobile phone that all other manufacturers had to beat, and even six years on these old Nokias are still quite useful.   The competitive advantage of the N95 and it successors was quickly eroded when Apple added many of the missing features to their range of smartphones, and it took Nokia until 2009 to come out with a touchscreen device to compete, with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

4. Nokia 6310i (2002) Launched in 2002, the Nokia 6310i became the quintessential business phone. It was easy to use, had a long battery life, Bluetooth, a really loud ringtone and was robust enough to handle to odd knock and bump.   You could even look at WAP pages on it (which nobody did) and play Snake (which probably everybody did). And one reason why it remained popular for years and years was that many business users had car kits designed just for this phone.   The 6310i understood its market completely. It didn't have a colour screen, because it wouldn't add anything of real value. It didn't have a camera because frankly the cameras of the day were useless, and in some businesses and organisations cameras are not permitted on site. It was a perfectly tailored device for its target market, and Nokia could never quite repeat the trick with any of its successors.

5. Ericsson R380 (1999) One of the last handsets to come out under the "Ericsson" brand, the Ericsson R380 was a touchscreen Symbian smartphone that came out eight years before Apple really popularised the concept..   The R380 was a monochrome device with a flip down keypad, like the Sony Ericsson P800 and P900. Although it was restricted in what it could do (you couldn't install apps, for example) it demonstrated what was possible, and for a long time Sony Ericsson were the clear leaders in smartphone technology and helped to set the benchmark for what a smartphone should do.   Back in the 20th century, the R380 looked like a James Bond gadget.. indeed, a mock-up of a closely related phone (called the JB988) appeared in the movie Tomorrow Never Dies.

6. HTC Wallaby (2002) Back at the turn of the century, standalone PDAs were still popular with the two main platforms being Palm's PalmOS and Microsoft Windows CE. Windows CE was very popular, but unlike smartphones these devices couldn't make phone calls or access the internet on the move.   Combining a PDA with a phone seems to us to be obvious, but by 2002 there were very few examples. The HTC Wallaby was one of the earliest recognisable examples of what we would regard as a modern touchscreen smartphone, and rapid improvements came afterwards which eventually established HTC as one of the key players in the smartphone market.   The Wallaby was never sold under its own name, instead being marketed at the O2 XDA, T-Mobile MDA, Siemens SX56 and Qtek 1100 plus many other names. And although both Windows and HTC have had their ups-and-downs since then, the Wallaby and the handsets that came afterwards helped to shape the concept of the modern smartphone.

7. Samsung Galaxy S II (2011) By the time the Samsung Galaxy S II came to market, Android smartphones had already been around for several years, but the S II represented a significant upgrade to screen size and processing power and put some clear blue water between Samsung and Apple.. at least in technical terms.   But despite the Galaxy S II having all the design charm of a cheap but reliable microwave oven, Apple took objection to this rather dull slab of a smartphone and tried to block it in the courts.   While the Samsung Galaxy S II is certainly no design icon (indeed, has there ever been an iconic Samsung phone?) it certainly represented an escalation in the specifications arms race between major manufacturers.

8. BlackBerry 7230 / 7290 (2003 / 2004) It's hard to say exactly what device is the definitive BlackBerry, but we'd suggest that the BlackBerry 7230 is probably one of the best candidates. The 7230 was tightly focussed on messaging with an efficient compact keyboard, an unusual but very low power transflective display, excellent integration with corporate mail systems, some decent PIM tools with a fairly decent library of downloadable applications.. and even some games.   The BlackBerry 7290 added Bluetooth, but other features took a long time to come to the BlackBerry platform, especially modern essentials such as 3G, WiFi, GPS and even a camera. But the 7230 helped to popularise messaging on the move, even if consumers eventually defected to touchscreen rather than QWERTY devices.

9. Motorola FONE F3 (2007) The elegant but very basic Motorola FONE F3 may not be a top-of-the-range smartphone, but it has a significant claim to fame as being the first consumer device to feature an electronic ink display.   Off the top of our heads we can list exactly two phones with an e-Ink display, the FONE and the as-yet-unreleased YotaPhone, although Samsung did experiment with an e-Ink keyboard.  Some manufacturers are experimenting with e-Ink displays in smartphone and tablet cases, but the biggest growth area has been electronic book readers such as the Amazon Kindle range, where the simple but low-power display is exactly what is needed.   To a large extent, the rather crude display in the FONE demonstrated that it was certainly possible to include this type of screen in a low-cost consumer device, and in this respect it was a pioneering handset.

10. T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream (2008) The T-Mobile G1 (also sold as the HTC Dream) was the first rather clunky attempt at an Android smartphone. Where the contemporary Apple iPhone 3G was an elegant device, the G1 was rather utilitarian and featured a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a little trackball, two features that are essentially extinct today.   Although modern Android phones are quite different from the G1, the market had been long awaiting a true "iPhone killer" handset, and the G1 heralded what was to become the best-selling class of smartphone in the world.   But of course, the G1 and all the Android phones that came after it did not actually kill off the iPhone at all. But they did kill off Windows Mobile and then Nokia's Symbian platform.