Know More About Mobile Phone At 40 (1973-2013)

Martin Cooper- Father of the Cellular Phone

The mobile phone turned 40 on April 3. For many of us cellphones are an extension of ourselves. This revolutionary device turned quietly 40. Cellphones, however, weren’t available commercially till a decade after that first call on April 3, 1973 on the device.

The first mobile call was placed on April on April 3, 1973, by Motorola engineer Martin Cooper, head of a team working on mobile communication technologies. He made the call to Joel Engle, head of research at rival Bell Labs. Cooper’s phone weighted about 1.2 kg, was more than 25cm in length and its battery life was just 20 minutes. Cooper and his team were honoured earlier this year with the Draper Prize by the National Academy of Engineering for their work. In 40 years, the industry has come a long way.

In 1983, after the US Federal Communications Commission approved the establishment

of mobile telephony, Motorola came out with the first commercial cellphone. The Motorola DYNATAC 8000 X, aka “The Brick”, had battery life of 30 minutes after ten hours of charging and cost $3,995.

In 1989, the first flip phone, the MOTOROLA MICROTAC, was launched with a price tag of $ 3,000. The year 1993 marked the launch of the first SMARTPHONE, the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, priced at $899.

The NOKIA 5110, which boasted of talktime of three hours and featured the popular Snake game, was launched in 1998.

The ultra-thin MOTOROLA RAZAR V3 with talktime of 7 hours was launched. ‘Slim is in’ was the mantra in 2004. The year 2007 marked a revolution in mobile devices with the launched of Apple’s iphone, which cost $499 for the 4GB version.

The year 2013 marks the launch of several flagship products such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Sony Xperia Z, and LG Nexus 4.