9 things about old mobile phones teenagers wont believe existed

9 THINGS ABOUT PRE-ANDROID AND PRE-IPHONE FEATURE PHONES THAT NOBODY UNDER 20 WILL BELIEVE

Mobile telephone has come a long way ever since the first mobile phone, DynaTAC was unveiled by Motorola. DynaTAC looked and felt like a brick, had a one line display and you could only make and receive calls. People who were born after the 1995s may not even have seen DynaTAC or that matter the next series of mobiles phones to hit the market.

Today we list the nine unbelievable things about pre-Android, pre-iOS feature phones which you wont believe existed.

1. Batteries went for weeks

Today if your smartphone battery lasts a whole day, you will count yourself lucky. Back in the days when Nokia and Motorola mobiles phones ruled the roost, the batteries of phones could go on and on. Nokia’s were particularly rugged and could carry on with a single charge for a weeks at end.

2. The best mobile game was Snake

There was a time when a game called Snake ruled mobile gaming. You would be surprised to know that people bought the mobile only if it had Snake aboard it. Snake was first released only for monochrome phones. Graphics consisted of black squares, and it had 4 directions. It was programmed in 1997 by Taneli Armanto, a design engineer in Nokia and introduced on the Nokia 6110.

3. Phones didn’t all look the same

Even if their configurations may differ widely, now, we have almost all smartphones looking the same. In those merry old days, you could get a mobile phone according to your choice, and believe me, the choice was wide.  before the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007,  phones came in a fantastic range of forms: magic springy things, foldy things, flippy things, things with aerials, things with keyboards.

4. The internet didn’t work

Back in those days of 1G or WAP, if you got through on Internet you would be considered the luckiest man/woman on Earth. It would take hours for a page to render on your itsy bitsy screen. We couldn’t load proper web pages, let alone music or video. And all of it was text based.

5. Nobody wanted a touchscreen

The earliest of the touchscreen phones were rejected by users because they lacked direction. You had to click a mile away to select a feature. Today’s capacitive multi-touch screens are fast and fluid, but pre-2007, any phone with a touchscreen had a resistive one that you had to poke a hundred times with a stylus, and you had to calibrate that or the screen would decide you’d tapped about two centimetres away from where you actually had.

6. Using Windows was considered futuristic

In the 2000s Windows powered phone was considered the ultimate test of technology. When the world’s first smartphone running on Windows Mobile, Orange SPV,  was released by HTC, websites, and media was agog with its news and features for weeks. However, like always, Google and Apple stole the march over Microsoft and Microsoft ended up being a fringe player in the smartphone market.

7. Users paid actual money to replace the operator logo

In those days everything came for a fee. You had to change ringtone, wallpaper or access your voicemails, you would be charged absurd amount by the service providers. Heck, even incoming calls were charged in those days.

8. Phones were unbreakable

Smartphones today need replacement even if they just slip out of your hands or your little one nips on the USB port. Back in those days mobiles were pretty indestructible with Nokia being one of the most rugged makers. You could even hit and hurt someone with a Nokia.

9. Nokia was Apple

Nokia was the king, queen and everything in those days. Nokia was Apple! Buying a Nokia mobile phone was considered the ultimate target of buyers when lots of other phones existed. In its hey days, 9 1⁄2 people out of 10 bought a Nokia. It was rugged, it was powerful, it could connect even from sewers and its battery lasted weeks. Nokia was a dream to own in those days.

Do you oldies remember your first phone and what it was like to use it comparing with today’s smartphones. Do write in the comments about your experience with your pre-Android and pre-iOS phones.