‘THE BRICK’ MOBILE PHONE

In 1983, the first ‘mobile phone’ was released in America by Motorola. Called the DYNATAC 8000X, it was also known as ‘the brick’ because it weighed over a kilogram. The portable phone batteries were capable of just 30 minutes of phone time and took around ten hours to charge. Though it was the first commercially available mobile phone, it came with a hefty price tag of $3,995 – equivalent to around £9,700 in 2024.

The DYNATAC operated on the first-generation analogue mobile network and used the newly developed advanced mobile phone system, released in the US, to make calls. The advanced mobile phone system used analogue frequency modulation to transmit speech throughout geographic regions known as cells, hence the name ‘cell phone’. These cells had a radio base station at the centre with a designated reception area covering several square miles, transmitting mobile frequencies to other base stations until they reached the target mobile phone.

At the time of its release, DYNATAC had access to pre-existing base stations in the US. However, the innovative phone wouldn’t reach the UK due to its lack of base station infrastructure. The first UK base stations were introduced in 1985, which came in time for the next instalment of the ‘brick’ phone, the Motorola 8500X, which quickly swept across Europe.