Retro 5|10: August 2004 and 2009

August 2004

In the days before ubiquitous touchscreens with intelligent on-screen keyboards, manufacturers struggled to find a way of putting a physical keyboard into their phones while keeping them a convenient size. The Siemens SK65 was one of the odder attempts, looking like a somewhat elongated but quite normal phone at first, but then a QWERTY keyboard rotated out, leaving the phone in a peculiar-looking cross shape. Although it had BlackBerry compatibility built-in, it turned out that potential customers would sooner stick with a BlackBerry and the product flopped, which means that it's a rather collectable device today.

Siemens SK65

BlackBerry were thinking along the same lines as Siemens with the BlackBerry 7100t which was much closer to a normal phone in configuration than traditional BlackBerry devices. These 7100-series devices were a modest success and they lead to the very popular Pearl range, but as with the Siemens design this type of QWERTY keyboard is basically extinct today.

BlackBerry 7100t

The Samsung i530 looked like an old-fashioned Samsung clamshell at first glance, but underneath this was a Palm OS smartphone which was highly unusual even then. Only a few thousand of these devices were ever made, and they were distributed to VIPs at the Athens Olympics. They are very rare devices today.. and those that are available are apparently mostly set to the Greek language which is a bit of a challenge.

Samsung i530

A decade or so before the current trend of "selfies", manufacturers were struggling to find ways to enable people to take self-portraits with single-camera phones. Some put a little mirror on the back, but devices such as the Samsung X610 had a rotating camera module that could point either backwards or forwards. These days it is probably more reliable and cheaper just to stick in a second camera.

Samsung X610

The Sendo P600 is a conventional pay-as-you-go phone from a decade ago, which is not so interesting in itself.. but the British company behind it was far more interesting, shipping millions of cheap and cheerful prepay phones on one end of the scale and some high-end Symbian devices on the other end. The P600 was almost the last product to come to market, and Sendo folded in 2005 without ever shaking up the market in the way that it could.

Sendo P600

August 2009

The Nokia N900 was Nokia's first and last Maemo smartphone, to a large extent it represented Nokia's last attempt to remain competitive in a rapidly-changing marketplace, but in the end it failed.

Nokia N900

The Nokia Booklet 3G was an odd beast - a Windows-based subnotebook with 3G connectivity and a lot of Nokia features built-in, this device was an attempt to cash in on what was then a successful market for tiny and inexpensive laptops. Unfortunately Nokia came into the market only a few months before Apple redefined everything with the launch of the original iPad, a move that pretty much killed the subnotebook market off completely.

Nokia Booklet 3G

What's the best selling smartphone of all time? Well, according to some sources it is the Nokia 5230, a low-cost Symbian device that sold in millions but was never as iconic as many other Nokia devices. Nokia also updated their flagship touchscreen smartphone with a special Navigation Edition of the Nokia 5800.

Nokia 5230

Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition

Five years ago the clamshell phone was a dying breed, but they did give manufacturers more leeway in the way they were designed. The Sony Ericsson Jalou may not have been to everyone's tastes, but it was certainly not boring.

Sony Ericsson Jalou

INQ Mobile was a British-based maker of low-cost phones which was a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa, who also own the 3 network. It was perhaps no surprise then that most of INQ's output headed to 3, and the INQ Chat 3G and the INQ Mini 3G were a couple of good looking and very good value phones that ended up on that network. INQ soldiered on for a long time with some modest success, but closed down early in 2014.

INQ Chat 3G

INQ Mini 3G

Nokia N900 (2009)

The Nokia N900 was officially announced five years ago this month, it was not only Nokia's most sophisticated phone to that point but it also remained the most sophisticated phone in Nokia's range for two years.

In many ways the N900 represented a critical point for Nokia that had been struggling to compete with rivals such as the Apple iPhone 3GS. If Nokia wanted to remain competitive in this market, it was the last point in time that it could pull something out of the hat to wow the world. Nokia desperately needed the N900 to be a success, but for a variety of reasons it wasn't.
 
The N900 was Nokia's first and last smartphone running the Linux-based Maemo operating system. Despite this being the first time it was in a smartphone, Nokia still regarded this as an Internet Tablet and it was the latest revision of a line that had been around since 2005 with the Nokia 770, followed by the N800 and N810. This meant that it was actually quite a mature product, and the Maemo 5 operating system had most of the rough edges ironed out and was easily as capable as anything else on the market.

Unlike most modern smartphones, the Nokia N900 featured a physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard, it came with a 3.5" 480 x 800 pixel resistive display, had a 600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU with 256MB of RAM plus an impressive 32GB of flash storage plus a microSD slot. On the back was a 5 megapixel camera with WVGA video capture plus a front-facing video calling camera. The N900 supported HSPA and WiFi data, had Bluetooth and GPS.. basically all the features that you'd expect to find in a modern smartphone.
 
When it was officially launched, Nokia found itself up against the last of the first-generation Android devices as well as the iPhone 3GS, which should have been an easy target. But the rollout was agonisingly slow, and in some markets it only started shipping in 2010 when it was up against second-generation Androids such as the HTC Desire.
 
So why did the N900 not become the breakout device that Nokia needed? One problem was the way that it was launched - Nokia hinted that there would be even better models around the corner which created an Osborne effect where many customers held off buying an N900 in anticipation of a better model to come.. when in fact there was no such model in the pipeline.

Clearly the N900 was a promising device, and a next-generation version with a bigger capacitive screen, faster processor, more memory and an improved interface would have strengthened Nokia's position hugely. But then Nokia made a terrible mistake with the Maemo product line - it tried to merge it with Intel's Moblin platform to become the completely new MeeGo operating system.
 
MeeGo turned out to be a massive strategic disaster. When the merger was announced at Mobile World Congress in February 2010, people were expecting to see an announcement for the N900's successor, but what happened instead was that all product development stopped while the codebases were merged, and customers were left waiting. And waiting.
 
By the time Nokia announced its first (and only) commercially-available MeeGo handset, the elegant Nokia N9, it was too late. The market had moved on and iOS and Android were king. Nokia's new CEO had given up and committed Nokia to Windows for high-end smartphones, the beginnings of a move which eventually led to all other products being killed off and Nokia's handset business being taken over by Microsoft.
 
However, there is a glimpse of what could have been if Nokia had come up with true replacement for the N900, and that is the very rare Nokia N950 developer phone which can sell for between €600 to €2000. Perhaps if the N950 had come out in 2010 then Nokia might still be an independent manufacturer.

Retro 5|10: July 2004 and 2009

For some reason, the months of July five and ten years ago managed to come up with some very unusual looking handsets, one of which turned out to be a design icon.

July 2004

The iconic Motorola RAZR V3 was launched ten years ago this month, a phone that was both beautiful to look at but horrible to use, the RAZR changed attitudes to they way that premium phones should be designed.

Motorola RAZR V3

The RAZR was based on the V500-series, and the Motorola V551 / V555 was the latest iteration of this conservatively-designed but still attractive clamshell phone. The Motorola A780 was an unusual Linux smartphone with a flip cover, which might have been more of a success if it had taken some design tips from the RAZR. Another radical idea was the Motorola A630 clamshell messaging phone with two screens and a tiny QWERTY keyboard.

Motorola V551 / V555	Motorola A780
Motorola A630

The A780 needed to beat the class leader of the time, the Sony Ericsson P910. Sony Ericsson had a comfortable lead in the touchscreen smartphone market at the time, but subsequent models tended to disappoint.

Sony Ericsson P910

Another contender against the P910 was the HTC Blue Angel (sold under various names including the T-Mobile MDA III). With a big 3.5" screen and WiFi support, the Blue Angel demonstrated clearly that HTC were developing into a major force.

HTC Blue Angel

A completely different phone, the NEC E228 was an early 3G device that sold well, partly because there was very little competition in the market at the time.

NEC E228

We also looked at Panasonic's efforts in the market with a range of phones that looked good but were deeply uncompetitive underneath, and we speculated that it might be Panasonic's last stand. Panasonic pulled out of the market in 2005, with a brief but unsuccessful attempt to return to the smartphone market in 2012.

Panasonic in 2004

July 2009

Five years ago there was a sudden rush of watch phones coming to market, and the Samsung S9110 was Samsung's attempt in this area - it caused quite a buzz but garnered very few sales.. but as a result it is quite a desirable device today, coming in at €300 to €450 on the second-hand market.

Samsung S9110

It was a month of unconventional phones - the Samsung Gravity 2 was exclusive to T-Mobile in the US and was a normal-looking phone with an unexpected slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The Samsung Comeback looked rather squashed, but opened up to look rather like a Sidekick device, again exclusively for T-Mobile in the US.

Samsung Gravity 2

Samsung Comeback

The Nokia Surge (aka the Nokia 6790) and Nokia 6760 were a pair of slightly odd-looking QWERTY sliders, with the Surge heading exclusively to AT&T in the US. Rather more normal looking was the Nokia 3720 Classic, but in fact underneath this was a water-resistant and shock-resistant phone which was one of the toughest on the market.

Nokia Surge

Nokia 6760

Nokia 3720 Classic

The Palm Pre came to Europe.. but in the end hardly anyone cared. More successful was the BlackBerry Curve 8520, an unexciting but popular addition to RIM's range of messaging smartphones.

Palm Pre

BlackBerry Curve 8520

Another pair of odd-looking phones, the LG BL40 Chocolate was a long and thin touchscreen feature phone, and the Motorola Karma QA1 was a squat-looking thing heading to AT&T in the US where it was very welcome to stay.

LG BL40 Chocolate

Motorola Karma QA1

A notable departure this month was the Nokia 6300 which was finally taken off the market after two-and-a-half years. One of the most attractive and memorable phones in Nokia's catalogue in the past decade, the Nokia 6300 was also a massive sales success.

Nokia 6300

Motorola RAZR V3 (2004)

This month marks the tenth anniversary of one of the most iconic handset designs of all time - the Motorola RAZR V3.
 
What made the RAZR different was the care put into its physical design. The ultra-slim aluminium clad clamshell was like no other phone, and it challenged people's concepts that a phone should be an ugly brick. One thing that the RAZR V3 had in spade was "wow factor".
 
Priced at $700+, the RAZR V3 was a premium handset at a premium price selling for iPhone money today. Cleverly this made the RAZR rather exclusive and even more desirable when it first came out. Motorola then cleverly made an even more exclusive black version handed out to attendees at the Oscars which further enhanced the RAZR's reputation as a handset for the rich and stylish.
 
Underneath the red hot exterior, the RAZR was a pretty tepid affair. The internals were based on the Motorola V500 series which had been launched the previous year, it featured a relatively large 176 x 220 pixel TFT display with a smaller external one, a VGA-resolution camera, Bluetooth, GPRS data, a puny 5.5Mb of memory and really not a lot else. You couldn't play music on it, capture video or use a memory card. And worse than that the user interface was truly horrible, reflecting a fundamental weak point in Motorola's design.
 
Despite the weaknesses in the phone, sales were huge and 130 million V3s in a wide variety of colours were sold. But it was perhaps the weaknesses in the phone design which meant that RAZR owners tended to switch to another brand once they replaced their RAZRs, leading to a long and nearly terminal decline for Motorola which failed to understand that a fashion phone is only a good thing as long as it is actually in fashion.
 

The man behind the RAZR (and the complementary PEBL)  was Geoffrey Frost, a marketing executive who was recruited from Nike. He set out with a singular vision for what he wanted in terms of a design, which was something radically different from Motorola's fairly conservative designs to date.
 
Frost reversed Motorola's declining fortunes with his strategy, and perhaps Motorola would be a very different company today if it wasn't for his tragic death in November 2005, aged just 56, coincidentally the same age as Steve Jobs when he died.
 
A combination of brilliant and frustrating design, the RAZR remains an iconic device which demonstrated that smart industrial design and good marketing can make a huge difference, something that Apple certainly knew when they launched the iPhone in 2007. And although phones today are definitely more capable, they are much more boring than this metal-clad masterpiece.
 

FOOTNOTE:

Frost was a remarkable yet private character. Some glimpses into his life and career can be found here:

• Chicago Tribune: Motorola's Frost dies
• CultureBy: Remembering Geoffrey Frost
• Engadget: Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon
• The Register: Only one man can save Motorola
• Adweek: Geoffrey Frost, Motorola

Retro 5|10: June 2004 and 2009

The late spring and early summer tend to see a burst of activity from mobile phone makers before they all go off for their summer vacations. This is what we saw happening five and ten years ago this month.
 

June 2004

 

Back in 2004 phones came in all shapes and sizes, and despite the modest features compared to modern devices they were certainly a lot more interesting to look at.
 
Ten years ago a "smartphone" was something that you could download and run native applications on, and the high-anticipated Motorola MPx220 was a Windows flip phone that combined the popular clamshell design with this then up-and-coming Microsoft operating system. There's probably a reason why modern smartphones no longer look this way.
 

Motorola MPx220

Nokia were king of the smartphone market in 2004, and the chubby-cheeked Nokia 6630 combined the Symbian operating system with a 3G device which started to bring together the elements that we'd expect to see in a modern smartphone. Another Symbian smartphone was the Nokia 6260, with a swivelling clamshell design that seemed to be inspired by the types of handsets coming out of Japan.

Nokia 6630

Nokia 6260

Not everything Nokia announced was a smartphone. The Nokia 6170 clamshell was a stainless steel handset which has to be one of the best looking Nokia devices ever (in our opinion). And one of the strangest clamshells ever is the Nokia 2650 which looks like some sort of shrunken sunlounger. If all this dizzying choice was too much for you, the Nokia 2600 was an inexpensive and utterly traditional design. Nokia 6170 Nokia 2650 Nokia 2600 In our view, the Siemens SL55 is an all-time classic design, but the replacement Siemens SL65 didn't manage to stir the same emotions. The Siemens CXF65 is long-forgotten, but it demonstrated that Siemens had its own distinctive flair for industrial design. Siemens SL65 Siemens CXF65 June 2009 A new iPhone is always big news, but the Apple iPhone 3GS marked the point where finally all the features came together. Significantly faster than previous versions, it combined a touchscreen, 3G support and WiFi, video recording, downloadable apps and GPS in an elegant design with a slick interface. With this, the iPhone 3GS became the handset that all other manufacturers would have to beat. Apple iPhone 3GS Out of all of Apple's competitors, it was perhaps HTC who best understood how the smartphone market was developing. The HTC Hero was an early Android phone that was highly competitive with the rest of the market, while being one of the best looking smartphones around. HTC Hero The Samsung Omnia II was Samsung's attempt to come up with a competitive Windows smartphone, and although on paper it looked like it was a contender it seemed that customers were not so impressed. The Samsung Pixon 12 was a touchscreen feature phone with a high-end camera on the back which caused quite a stir at the time. A completely different phone, the Samsung Crest Solar flirted with solar power, something that never really caught on. Samsung Omnia II Samsung Pixon 12 Samsung E1107 Crest Solar While all other manufacturers were concentrating on follow Apple's lead, Nokia was following BlackBerry with the Nokia E72 messaging device. Nokia did also create a touchscreen device with the low-end Nokia 5530 XpressMusic which missed out many of the features that smartphone users were after. Meanwhile, the Nokia 3710 was a clamshell phone that featured 3G data and GPS, a surprising combination in something so cheap. Nokia E72 Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Nokia 3710 Manufacturers were beginning to become aware of the environmental impact of their phones, and the Sony Ericsson Naite used recycled plastics, reduced packaging and tried to minimise the energy it used, but like the Sony Ericsson T715 also announced the same month it demonstrated that Sony Ericsson were heading down the wrong track when it came to competitiveness. Sony Ericsson Naite Sony Ericsson T715