70's compact cell phone

[abunaitoo]

Remember these????
It was the "compact" cell phone back in the 70's.
About 2/3 the size of the regular one.
Imagine carrying this around all day long.
Or holding it to your ear for hours.
Although I don't think the battery would last for more than an hour.
Attachment 280051

[marlin39a]

I had a bag phone back in 1994. I used it to verify charge cards at gun shows. Bigger than that gizmo.

[poppy42]

The brick! I had a doctor friend and had one. It was pretty much useless. Although it wouldn’t make one heck of a club

[Jsm180]

70's? More like early 90's

[john.k]

The Motorola "brick " was the first cheap cell phone.....maybe the first cell.....the previous "bag phone" wasnt cell ,but a satellite transciever ...and very expensive ....like $7-8k.....the brick cut the price to a more affordable $2000...quite a lot in 1980s money.

[Shawlerbrook]

Also had a bag phone. Could have used it as a boat anchor.

[john.k]

There are still plenty of "bag phones" in use .....if you are outside of cell reception areas,remote location,then you need a satellite transceiver,just as before the "cell" infrastructure existed.

[derek45]

That's not 1970's technology.

[cwtebay]

That's VERY compact compared to my first one! It was the size of a 3" -3 ring binder. My FIL kept the same model as that until 2011 when cellular companies refused to offer service to them any longer.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[JimB..]

Early 1990’s
Motorola 8000H I think.
Antenna looks wrong.
I had the special/executive version in black.

As I recall “the brick” was a TT30 bag phone, Motorola Tough Talker. You could pound nails with the thing while talking.

[sigep1764]

I remember my mom had the first cell phone in our family, around 1995. It was a Motorola fit phone, a 1st gen StarTac. No memory, had to remember phone numbers and had 2 batteries, one charging and one using. Great service. She still has the same cell phone number. Dad then got at the same time a new StarTac flip phone the size of a billfold that could store 20 phone numbers and a blackberry that could send and receive text messages and voice messages. All in 1997-98. Now we have the equivalent of a Star Trek Tricorder in our hands. Literally the earliest 4000 square foot computer has 1/1000000 the computing power of the modern smart phone. We are Warp Speed away from the future.

[abunaitoo]

I thought it was from the 70's.
I had one of those car phones in the 70's, and I thought these were around.
Wasn't this one smaller than the brick????
I remember the brick being much larger.
Getting old and memory seems to be fading.
I wonder how many kids these days would know what it is????
I know most have no idea what a rotary phone is.

[JimB..]

I thought it was from the 70's.
I had one of those car phones in the 70's, and I thought these were around.
Wasn't this one smaller than the brick????
I remember the brick being much larger.
Getting old and memory seems to be fading.
I wonder how many kids these days would know what it is????
I know most have no idea what a rotary phone is.

Lord I’m getting old, we launched cell service in Chicago, Las Vegas and Greensboro NC sometime in the early to mid 1980’s. The 8000H was a big improvement over the older dynatac which was about twice as large front to back. With the extended life battery and 6db gain antenna it was a formidable weapon.
There was no commercial cell phone service in the 1970’s, but there were some test sites up, I recall them being in Vancouver and NYC.

[David2011]

We’re in the process of deciding what new phones to get. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has been rejected because it weighs over 1/2 lb without a case compared to my current iPhone 6 that weighs just over 5 ounces. That’s a big difference for carrying in a shirt pocket. My first Motorola with an antenna and a folding mouthpiece was a brick by comparison.

[Lloyd Smale]

I had a bag phone back in 1994. I used it to verify charge cards at gun shows. Bigger than that gizmo.

we used to have bag phones in our line trucks.

[Plate plinker]

There are still plenty of "bag phones" in use .....if you are outside of cell reception areas,remote location,then you need a satellite transceiver,just as before the "cell" infrastructure existed.

Yep I know a guy the erects remote communication towers they always have a bag phone on the site.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

According to my "Saved by the Bell" time machine, the height of the Brick phone popularity was 1989 to 1993 (the time period of the first four seasons of the original TV broadcast) ...there appears to be many different flavors of Brick phones in use in that time period. There is also a cameo of a flip phone, likely in a 1993 episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBWneSL5MWI

[Tripplebeards]

I have a watchman TV to add to the pile.

[AZ Pete]

The Motorola "brick " was the first cheap cell phone.....maybe the first cell.....the previous "bag phone" wasnt cell ,but a satellite transciever ...and very expensive ....like $7-8k.....the brick cut the price to a more affordable $2000...quite a lot in 1980s money.

bag phones were also available as cel phones. I had a Motorola bag phone. Satellite phones came later, as the outfit I worked for had a few of those in the early '90's as well.

[Ural Driver]

Dad had a "radio phone" in his truck then went to a bag phone which he kept for years.

https://youtu.be/yCB6gUrma2c