The StarTAC was also my first flip phone. According to Wikipedia it was technically the world’s first “full” flip — the MicroTAC that preceded it only qualified as a semi because of its exposed earpiece. The point is, back then this was a design revelation. You didn’t need a case for the StarTAC because the phone protected itself when closed — that is, the screen and keypad folded up against each other, safe from harm’s way. An additional benefit of this design was that you could answer a call by flipping the handset open, though prying it apart like a clamshell would make the hinge last much longer. Note that this was in the days before cell phones had call display, so you couldn’t screen calls even if you wanted to. And thanks to the whip antenna you could pull another slick move. Remember in the movie Pulp Fiction when John Travolta, with a comatose Uma Thurman in the back seat of his car, yanked out the antenna of his cell phone with his teeth before dialling a number? Yeah, that move. Badass.

My hardware upgrade could have gone a different way — Bell also carried the Nokia 282 at the time. But the StarTAC had yet another trick up its sleeve: it was my first handset with a vibrate function. No big deal today, but back then you were seen as a person of means if your phone politely buzzed rather than beeped.

Speaking of snob appeal, the StarTAC was the first cell phone with available accessories that were actually worth paying for. At the high end was the prohibitively expensive lithium-ion battery; for those on a budget there was a more modestly priced clamp-on battery extender, making the diminutive Moto look a lot more like the bulky MicroTAC that preceded it. I stuck with the standard battery but got myself a car charger. Too bad I didn’t have a car to plug it in to.

As time passed ever more models of StarTAC and StarTAC accessories came to market. I can remember two or three other people I knew who also had one; we’d chat about battery life, accessories and such. In other words, this marked the first time that I experienced a sense of community around a mobile device. Prescient stuff, this…

I found two sources for the above image — one on this Indonesian blog and a (supposedly) Creative Commons version on this site.

According to Wikipedia Moto’s first model of the StarTAC line went by the moniker “StarTAC”; mine was most definitely the AMPS version.

Thanks to @docmobile on Twitter I think I’ve nailed down my first-ever cell phone — I’m fairly certain it was the Nokia 638 on Canada’s Bell Mobility network. Thing is, I’d love to get a photo of it in baby blue for the book, but so far I can only find this low-res graphic of a yellow one.

Little help?

P.S. Props to the Nokia Museum for putting their stuff online. I’d love to know if the images there are Creative Commons…

Back in mid-1990s Toronto (where I live) pay phones were still cheap and plentiful, and most of my time was spent either at home or in the theatre where I worked. For me, a cell phone was an unnecessary luxury.

It was a different story for my generous friend. He was an up-and-coming director of photography for music videos and TV commercials. He was always on location somewhere, and needed a mobile phone to secure his next gig, even while working the current one. He bought his Nokia first, the same model as mine but in a bright yellow housing. He loved it so much that he bought a matching yellow hard case for it — not a form-fitting case as we know it today but a small hard case with a handle, filled with foam and a cavity cut out for the device.

I needed no such protection for my Nokia; it went almost straight from the box to the bottom of my desk drawer, with the power shut off and battery removed. Starving comedian that I was I could barely afford to pay my bill, let alone risk going over my monthly allotment of minutes. I did take it out with me once to do a show at another theatre, where good fortune smiled upon me — my phone was stolen from the dressing room. Freedom!

But getting out of the contract with my carrier was another matter altogether. When I called Bell Mobility to cancel my service I was pushed to accept a replacement phone for only a little less than the two hundred or so Canadian dollars my buddy paid for the original. I politely declined. The price immediately dropped to a hundred. Nope. Then fifty. Really not interested… Finally it was offered to me for free. And a week or so later, a second grey version of the phone I never wanted showed up at my door.

Shortly afterwards the police called me up with the good news that my stolen blue Nokia had been recovered. Great, so now I had two phones, two batteries and two chargers entombed in the bowels of my desk. They stayed there for at least a year, until I gave them both away to someone I found through an online charity service.

This would be the first time I had two working mobile devices in my home simultaneously, but certainly not the last.

Directory assistance, from a car phone? Doesn’t he know how much that costs? This guy must be rich… yes, that’s it — he’s a rich gangster in a Chinese Triad and I’m going to die before this ride is over…

Of course I didn’t, but it would be many years before I had a mobile phone to call my own. And even then I still wasn’t sold on the idea.