Mobile phones of the nineties

Even though the concept of mobile phones has been a hit from late 90's, the introduction of cell phones dates back to as early as 1947. The completely automatic mobile networks were first introduced in 1980's. But it wasn’t until the late 90's mobile phones that mobile phones started to take off, before then mobile phones were not convenient to carry because of its big size. The then mobile phones could rarely be carried in the shirt or jacket pockets. They were mostly used as car phones, installed in cars on permanent basis.

Mobile phones in the 80's and early 90's

These phones of the 90s are known as second generation of mobile phone systems (2G). This generation uses digital transmission instead of analogue. Another major difference was that Short Message Service (SMS) was available on these phones. The two most popular brands were Nokia and Motorola. Popular models released by Nokia were the 3210 and 6160. Motorola was known for their flip phones where you would have to pull the antenna out for reception.

2nd Generation mobile phones from the 90s

And a feature you would most likely remember about 90s mobile phones was that they definitely were not in colour and they had basic games such as snake on them. Nokia did however release a mobile phone, the 8270, with a blue backlight to try and add some sense of colour to the phones. But this model didn’t come out until about 2004. Another feature about these phones was that you were able to take the cover off and place your own cover on top. In the late 90s you were also able to purchase monophonic ring tones to personalise your phone.

Nokia 8270 released in 2004