It was distributed by BellSouth Cellular Corp. The IBM Simon was a touchscreen PDA (personal digital assistant) designed by IBM and manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric. Original Retail Price: $899 to $1099 (about $1,620 to $1,980 in 2021)Ī year before the term “smartphone” was coined (because of this phone’s capabilities) and decades before they became a common personal item, the IBM Simon made its debut in 1994 as the world’s very first smartphone. Manufactured By: IBM and Mitsubishi Electric However, it turns out that the Siemens S1 (released in 1993) had a hidden game of Tetris and IBM Simon (released earlier in 1994) had Scrabble. Did You Know?įor many years, it was widely believed that the Hagenuk MT-2000 was the first cell phone to come pre-loaded with a mobile game. Hagenuk sold off its mobile phone division in 1995, just a year after the Hagenuk MT-2000’s release. All cell phones, from any manufacture, before this (and even after) had to have traditional antennas to boost their signal.Īdditionally, the Hagenuk MT-2000 and its predecessor, the Hagenuk MT-900, were the first cell phones to have soft keys (buttons that have more than one function).ĭespite its many firsts and Hagenuk getting into the GSM phone market early, both the Hagenuk MT-2000 and the company were not popular enough to survive the cell phone wars. The Hagenuk MT-2000 was the first cell phone with an internal antenna. Like many of the other early cell phones on this list, the Hagenuk MT-2000 made many firsts. The Motorola StarTAC has remained such a popular vintage cell phone that Motorola revived the brand name twice: first in 2004 for a model released in the South Korean market and again in 2007 when the StarTAC III was released. The Motorola StarTAC changed history by becoming the first cell phone to gain widespread consumer adoption. The initial Motorola StarTAC model (3000) was followed up by many different versions that had additional features or came in special colors, like the Rainbow colorway released in 1998. It was so small, that Motorola advertised that the StarTAC was a “wearable cell phone.” All you needed was a hip holster, which became incredibly popular accessories following the StarTAC’s release The StarTAC was very small by cell phone standards at the time and was essentially the first truly mobile phone. It was the first true clamshell or flip phone and was a follow up to Motorola’s earlier MicroTAC, which was also a partial flip phone. The Motorola StarTAC is perhaps one of the most iconic cell phones from the 1990s.

Old mobile phone keypad