I had one of those too!
Worked for AT&T Wireless Services in 1998, left them for Microsoft, and got to take my company phone with me when I left AT&T, a Nokia 5190:
at Microsoft, I had to provide support for the RIM Blackerry 850 & 950
I think a Motorola StarTAC was next for me:
At that time, while working for Washington Mutual Bank, I supported and used a smattering of RIM Blackberry Devices, starting off with the Blackberry 5810
and then The Blackberry 7230:
and many other Blackberries in that four year stint.
Followed by an AT&T Tilt (HTC) Windows mobile phone:
next, the HTC Droid Incredible:
I think the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 followed that. It still sits on my desk, and used to be used to used to monitor my a few security cams, and then the Wyze cams (notice the nice Burn In the lower left corner of this OLED screen)
And from there, we went from the Dark side (google) to to the other Dark side (apple) with our iPhone 12 Pro Max for about five years, and now our current iPhone 16 Pro Max
How did we ever survive without a cell phone before there were cell phones?
Now I can’t leave the house without it, and will turn the car around to retrieve the phone when I do…
Disclaimer: as I relived that journey of cell phones I’ve used, I’m thinking I might have the things not in the correct chronological order. Old age will do that…
Wow. You reminded my about having a work HTC, about 3 or 4 blackberrys and a “Good” device. When I left, they let me keep the Samsung S6. Fond memories.
Oh wow, you just reminded me that I had the HTC Touch for couple of months that I accidentally broke and replaced it with just released iPhone.
Some of the devices shown here remind me of my Handspring Visors that I used extensively, though I never had the cellular module for the Springboard expansion slot.
Yeah, I had Palm Pilot and Dell Axim with a GPS BlueTooth module.
I had a couple of iterations of the Palm devices, too. The last one I bought was a Tungsten T3. That one was dope! I really liked using the stylus and the Graffiti system.
Not a big fan of the stylus, kept on misplacing them
Handspring had a 5-pack (I think) in different colors, so I bought that for fun.
My first cellphone was the Motorola Brick in 1990. I graduated to the thin Brick and since then have gone through Nokia’s until they started to suck and then Samsung’s until they started to suck. I still have a Palm Treo and the Palm puck with the slide out keyboard. Used a Sony Ericsson in Singapore. I used some low end LG’s in projects requiring cell uplink until we designed a hat for raspberry pi’s using Telit modems.
For the last few years, I have gone from a Pixel 4a 5G to a Pixel 7 to a Pixel 8.
Never an iPhone.
Over those 35 years, I have the same phone number I started with.
Wow. You must be older than me? Same first number for 30 years. Never had a brick. Guess I started late, not like kids today.
Times were different. All I needed was a pager, back then.
It was “helpful” since I worked in IT and was on-call frequently. Made it easier to deal with issues when I was neither at work nor at home. Hated my pager.
Well, the first one I had I have zero photos, since there were no smartphones back then, but it was a car-mounted phone.
Just an image I found, not me LOL
Kid. I had a carphone (as posted earlier in this thread) in 1984 or 1985.
My FIRST CELL PHONE was the one on the right in this image.
I later got a SECOND ONE, the portable one, on the left.
When I got out of the car I would forward to the handheld.
Later dumped the one in the car, I think I changed cars, and the cost to retrofit it was too much in the 80’s.
Both cost me $99, including installation for the one in my car, at home!
I STILL HAVE and USE the Elevated feed “pig tail” antenna for something else to this day! Antenna Specialists antennas rock! I have several others for UHF and VHF… DuraFlex ones still in use!
The phones are buried in my “treasure chest” some place in the my shed.. Can’t grab’m to photo.
I’m not the only one holding on to ‘old technology’ and wondering why… My “Museum” Tub produced a few other artifacts that I might start another thread with.
Time for you to go clean and organize the shed to find your lost treasure!
This is awesome and made me laugh.
When I started my ISP in 1994, I used my cell phone number as the main business number. I would start at home about 7 and when I got to the office, I would redirect the calls to a land line. Then, if I left the office, or when I went home at night, I would switch the calls back to the cell.
This saved a lot of money and battery.
I would take service calls on my cell, sometimes until 2am, go to bed and start all over in the morning.