When did you get a mobile phone?

[manicinsomniac]

I've always known I was late getting one (got a bright blue Motorola brick for Christmas 2000 and I was very excited! ) but I don't remember seeing them until 1997 or so and tv/films from the 90s don't seem to feature them much.

But I've just been reading about mobile phone history (thrilling, I know - fell down the internet black hole!) and apparently there were handsets available from 1985 (1983 in the US) and the first non brick flip phone came out in 1988. I'm really surprised.

When did you get your first phone?

I got one in 1995 after collecting vouchers with Asda fuel! It was connected to Cellnet, quite a lot of my peers had them too.

Probably mid 80s.
My employer supplied a mobile phone for work purposes
It was huge
And the battery that came with it was like a massive heavy iron thing that had to be recharged nightly

It was towards the end of 1999 when I was 20. I think it was the Nokia 3310? I think I was probably one of the last ones out of my friends to get one, and I still remember the number to this day!

1994 ish. It couldn't send texts. I was 23. I remember seeing the first text. It was about 1996 and my boss got a text from a friend. It blew my mind.

I didn't get my first smart phone until 2010. Again, mind blown.

Regina my Motorola brick was from my Grandma too. It was already 'not cool' when she bought it but I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Remember only being able to have 10 text messages and having to choose which one to delete to free up space to receive a new one!?

August 1993 on BT Cellnet I think. It eventually morphed into O2 and I'm still with them today. My old boss had a car phone brick in around 86/87 but it was installed not mobile. Ex husband had the same thing in 1986. I remember phoning my mum from his new car and being so excited I was on the phone in the car 😂😂

This one, 1997

Oh and it was with mercury one to one. I still have the same number.

The very first 'mobile' I was was in approx 1985 at a youth club. It looked like one of the things they used in the war.

2002 I was 10. Just started a new school 15 miles away so it was for contacting me of the bus was going to be late. Also to talk to dad as he was working away at the time

Oh and it was a Nokia 3310

1994

Ericsson EH237

Very stylish at the time

I bought it when I went into business on my own. Subsequently, it paid for itself in a single day.

This is the weirdest one I owned

A Nokia in the mid nineties, can’t remember the exact year but DH and I shared it as it was for just emergencies.

16% of households had a mobile in 1996, according to this page

1999 when pregnant with ds1. Dh and I shared it. I got my own one in 2003 when I went back to work after having ds 2.

My first was, I think, a Motorola in 2001. It was when supermarkets started selling them. Mine was from Tesco on Salford precinct

My friend got one in 1997, because she was having an affair with a dickhead who had one, as well as a wife.

Summer 1997 when I was about to take my car back to university with me for the first time. Good job, really, because it broke down on the journey 🙄

I had a Sony MarsBar phone CM- H333 in 1993.
I bought it from The People's Phone Company and it cost about £30 a month which was quite a bit back then.

I got a Panasonic something-or-other in 1998 and thought it was the coolest thing ever!
My dad had an actual car phone, as in wired into the car, from about 1985. His job was an on the road salesman, and it was a company phone. I do remember we were warned not to play with the phone, it was horrendously expensive to make calls.

1997 think it was a Motorola or Sony from woolworths. I was 16 and paid for it from my weekend job.
I was one of only a few to own one in my 6th form. A year later and everyone had one. I think before that mobile phones were considerably bigger and heavier.
It was also about that time that the internet became accessible to all.

Late 96 early 97 I think? I was traveling back and forth to the south coast, staying down there during the week, my Nan was getting on and I wanted to be able to get in touch with my parents.
I think it was a Motorola?

I think 1999. It was a brick it came with different colour replacement faces. few separate sheets of coloured plastic I could swap

1998

Blue Motorola brick for my 18th birthday in 1999. I think pay as you go was fairly new then so that's why I got mine, my parents hadn't wanted me to run up huge bills as there had been so many scare stories of teenagers getting a contract phone and having huge bills. My dad had a car phone for years before that for work but I got the first proper mobile in our family.