We take a lot of features for granted on our smartphones. The ability to watch a movie on it, play games, access the internet, click high resolution photos, water resistance, so on and so forth. But, did you know that the features we take for granted are a culmination of decades of work put into smartphones? Today we take a look at all the firsts. The first smartphone, the first phone with a camera, the first phone with a colour display, the first BlackBerry, the first gaming phone, the first phone with a dual camera and more. So, buckle your seatbelts as we take you back to the past, where it all began for that little device in your hand.
First Phone with a touchscreen
The IBM Simon was the first phone with a touchscreen. It was launched in 1992. It is also referred to as the first smartphone although the term “smartphone” wasn’t coined at the time. It was also the first phone to use a stylus to interact with the touchscreen display.
First Smartphone
Powered by Symbian and boasting of a touchscreen the Ericsson R380 was marketed as a smartphone and was launched in the year 2000. It combined the best of two worlds – PDA and mobile phones.
First mobile phone
The first mobile phone was made by Motorola and was called the DynaTAC 8000x. It was the world’s first commercial cell phone. It was priced at $3,995 and went on sale in 1984. The first phone call was made on April 3, 1973 by Motorola employee Martin Cooper using a prototype of the DynaTAC 8000x.
First phone to sell more than 250 million units
This record is held by the Nokia 1100 making it the bestselling electrical gadget in history.
The first BlackBerry
The BlackBerry 850 was the first handset released under the BlackBerry brand. The BlackBerry 850 was launched on July 12, 1999. The device had a six-line display. Users could send messages, emails and it had a calendar, address book, task list, calculator and an alarm function. The 850 was one of the first to let people connect to their corporate emails and contacts. In terms of its specifications it had 4MB of memory and ran on one AA battery. It weighed in at 133g. It also had a QWERTY keyboard.
First flip/clamshell phone
Flip phones may be dead in the modern world but they were pretty cool in their heyday. The Motorola StarTAC can be crowned as the first flip phone. It was launched on January 3, 1996. The phone had a 500mAh removable battery, had a phone book that could save 100 numbers and was 19mm thick.
First phone with a colour display
The first phone with a colour display to go on sale in the US was the Sanyo SCP-5000. It sported a 2-inch display which was considered quite large for the time. It could display up to 256 colors. It went on sale in 2001.
First phone dedicated to gaming
The Nokia N-Gage was the first phone to launch with the buttons laid out as a game controller. The phone was 20mm thick and had a 2.1-inch display with a resolution of 176x208. It had a 104MHz processor and 3.4MB of built-in memory. An 850mAh battery powered the package.
First phone with a fingerprint scanner
The first phones to feature a fingerprint scanner were the Toshiba G500 and G900 launched in 2007. The G500 which was a sliding phone had a rear mounted fingerprint sensor. The phone had a 2.3-inch display, 32-bit Intel XScale PXA270 312 MHz processor, 2MP rear camera and VGA front camera. It had a 1200mAh battery.
First phone with a camera
This is where history gets slightly muddled up. There is an argument as to which was the first phone to feature a camera. So, we’ll talk about both of them here. There was the Sharp phone released in Japan by J-Phone back in November of 2000. The J-SH04 could take photos with its 0.11MP camera. The other phone to be considered the first with a camera was the Samsung SCH-V200. The key difference between the two was that the Sharp phone let users send photos electronically. Whereas to access photos on the Samsung phone, you needed to connect it to the computer.
First 3D phone
By 3D we mean the technology to have depth perception on a smartphone. The first phone to do this was launched back in 2002 from Sharp and was called the Sharp mova SH251iS. The phone had a 2.2-inch display. The 0.3MP built-in camera could also take 3D photos and users could use an app to convert regular 2D photos to 3D photos. Although we don’t think programs on phones were called apps back in those days.
First phone with dual cameras
In 2011, 3D was a thing. The LG Optimus 3D was announced in February 2011 and the HTC Evo 3D launched in March 2011. Both the smartphones boasted of a 3D display and a dual camera setup at the back to click 3D photos. However, if we talk about a dual camera setup on a smartphone to help enhance the image, then it was the HTC One M8 that really introduced dual lens cameras to the world. The HTC One M8 was launched in April 2014 and used two sensors in the same way that modern smartphone cameras do.
First iPhone
No list of first phones is complete without the first iPhone. The iPhone was announced in January 2007 and went on sale in July the same year. The first iPhone featured a 3.5-inch 320x480 TFT capacitive touchscreen display, with Corning Gorilla Glass, oleophobic coating. It had a 412MHz processor, a 2MP camera and came in three storage options – 4,8 and 16GB.
First phone with a curved display
The Samsung Galaxy Round was the first phone with a curved display and went on sale in 2013. The smartphone has a 5.7-inch 1080p display, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC and had 3GB RAM along with 32GB built-in storage. It sported a 13MP primary camera and a 2MP front facing camera. The LG G Flex was launched a month after the Galaxy Round.
First smartphone with a 2K display
The first smartphone to break the barrier of Full HD resolution and sport a 2K resolution was the Vivo Xplay 3S. The smartphone was released back in 2013. It had a 5.7-inch display, ran on the Snapdragon 800 chipset and 3GB of RAM. Other features on the smartphone include stereo speakers, LTE connectivity, a 13MP rear camera with an f/1.8 aperture, and also a fingerprint sensor.
First phone with built-in OIS
Optical Image Stabilization may be a sought after feature in smartphones today, but the first phone to feature the technology was the Nokia Lumia 920. The smartphone ran on the now extinct Windows Phone OS. At the time though, this was a breakthrough feature in camera technology for smartphones.
First phone with liquid cooling
Another technology innovation in smartphones to be helmed by Windows Phone is liquid cooling. The technology was introduced in the Nokia Lumia 950 and 950XL and is now being used in the Nokia 8.
First phone with a 4K HDR display
The recently launched Sony Xperia XZ Premium is the first smartphone to feature a 4K HDR display. You can check out its details in our review.
First Android Phone
The first Android phone was launched by HTC on 22 October 2008. It was called the HTC Dream but was also known as the T-Mobile G1 in the United States. It was the first to run on the Android OS. Even though the HTC Dream was the first commercially launched smartphone to run on Android, there was a device called the Sooner. It was Google’s and Andy Rubin's first vision of what an Android phone would be. Unfortunately, the device was never released commercially.
First phone with wireless charging
At CES 2009, Palm announced their Pre-smartphone would be available with an optional inductive charger accessory, the "Touchstone". The charger came with a required special backplate that became standard on the subsequent Pre Plus model announced at CES 2010. This was also featured on later Pixi, Pixi Plus, and Veer 4G smartphones.
First 18:9 Phone
18:9 may be the new standard for smartphone aspect ratio, but it is interesting to know that this new aspect ratio is just one year old. A slew of smartphone makers launched phones with an 18:9 display in 2017, but the first phone to hit store shelves with the new display was the LG G6.
First phone with a notch
Technically, the first phone to launch with a notch was the essential phone, but it was the iPhone that made it popular. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny the fact that 2018 has seen the announcement of a number of smartphones with an iPhone like notch.
First 120Hz display phone
Phone display refresh rates isn’t something we talk about, but if you are a gamer then you know that refresh rate is a big deal. What better way to appeal to a gamer than launch a smartphone with a 120Hz refresh rate. Razer launched the Razer Phone which is the first smartphone in the world to have a 120Hz refresh rate.
First phone with a dual aperture
The Samsung Galaxy S9 is the first phone to bring the dual aperture to the world, but it isn’t the first phone to rock one. The first phone to rock a dual aperture was made by Samsung. Called the W2018 the smartphone was launched in China only.
Phone with a projector
The first phone with a built-in projector was the Logic Bolt. The smartphone was announced in 2008-2009 and sported a 640x480 LCOS 10 Lumens projector.
Image Courtesy: Popular Science