The first major mobile phone made available for the average consumer resembled a large brick, and could only be used for voice calls. Since then, mobile phones have an increasingly large array of additional functions and applications, and very few people actually use their phones strictly for voice calls anymore. The modern mobile phones – Smartphones – have a touchscreen interface, Internet access, media players, mobile email, photography and videography, gaming, social media and much more.
In 1983 Motorola released the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, one of the first truly portable phones. However these devices went on sale for almost $4000 each, and were primarily used in sales and business, rather than for personal use. In 1989 Nokia launched their first mobile phone ,the Mobira Cityman 900, which only weighed 800g (compared to the previous 1982’s 9.8kg Mobira Senator model). 1990 to 1995, mobile devices gradually began to improve in design and portability, also appearing in the hands of average consumers for the first time. Changes in design includes the first clamshell handset ( Motorola StarTac, 1997), the first phone to use a thin-film transistor active matrix LCD display (Samsung SGH-T100, 2002) and the phone that popularized applications and touchscreen interfaces (Apple iPhone 3G. 2008).
