Shopping for a phone these days is so boring.
Let's see, do I want the black rectangle
or would I rather have the other black rectangle
that's totally different
and definitely deserves my undying brand loyalty?
Or would I rather have this?
I mean, how freaking cool are these?
We've got the camcorder phone.
We got the lipstick phone.
We've got a total of 10 of the weirdest,
coolest mobile devices from the past three decades.
We've even got the sponsor phone.
Wait, who put this one in here?
Oh, you know what?
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I haven't seen any of these yet.
We're shooting the intro at the end.
So I am just as excited as you guys are.
Actually, maybe more so
because I get to play a fun little game as we go through.
I'll be guessing the release year
and the starting price of every device
beginning with,
ooh,
the Kyocera Echo M9300.
I see this has a charging cable plugged into it.
I'm gonna hope for the...
Oh, what?
No way.
The folding phone from before folding phones.
USB micro B, volume rocker, power.
Look at how easily accessible that...
Oh, I thought it was a SIM tray, but of course.
Remember micro SD expansion, anyone?
Wait, there's still a micro SD card in here.
Hey, I just got a free micro SD card.
Well, not really free.
We paid $58 for this phone, which is great.
Okay, it's Android.
That means it's not that old.
Built-in camera.
This is apparently five megapixels and record 720p video.
It's got 512 megs of RAM, a gig of storage,
and uses a Snapdragon S1.
It has at least three different modes.
Candy bar mode, a lot.
Flick to unlock.
Remember when Apple was all mad about that?
Oh my God, early Android was ugly.
Also, when was the home button on the left?
I don't remember that.
I guess this is gaming?
Oh, I guess this was a gaming centric phone.
One thing nobody misses is all the horrible
preloaded carrier junk on this thing.
The Sims 3, actually, okay, that's pretty cool.
Right, right, right.
The third operating mode.
Tablet mode, Microsoft.
I see where you got the inspiration for the Surface Duo.
You nailed it.
I always like having a big gap down the middle of my screen.
Oh, that's cool.
Back before the home button and back button were on screen,
they were hardware buttons,
and it's got it on both screens.
So you have all the flexibility.
Oh, I didn't even notice the coolest thing about the hinge.
You can kind of snap it so you don't have that big gap.
Okay, download server's still up for this?
Man.
Yeah, that shouldn't surprise me that much.
Come on, I feel like I have to play a game on the,
get Namco games.
Activity launcher is not responding.
Tablet mode, whoops, didn't think that one through.
WAP shop.
Kind of glad this didn't move anything.
Enough fooling around though.
It's guest time, and I'm gonna say 2010, $400.
Oh, I like freaking nailed it then.
I think things are about to get a little bit harder though.
Oh, this, I know what this is.
This is my first cell phone.
There will be absolutely no excuse for me to get this wrong.
I actually did a whole video on this one.
It's absolutely amazing.
To my knowledge, this was the first phone ever
with a full keyboard.
Calling it a phone is a little bit generous.
You see, it didn't have a speaker
or a microphone built into it.
It was actually an accessory, so you had to unlock it
and then replace the battery cover here
with this like figure eight shaped wart
that went on the back, and then it had a cable
that plugged into this mini two and a half millimeter jack
with a little squiggly cord, which obviously broke
on every single one of the ones we had.
I had one, my mom had one, and my dad had one.
The reason is that my mom's hard of hearing,
so talking via voice was not really an option,
but being able to quickly text was flipping awesome.
The best thing about this phone though by far
was the games.
Phones were cheaper back then, let's say 350 bucks.
Wait, this came out that early?
Oh, okay.
Sorry, my memory.
All right, how much was it?
You can still buy it?
I give up, but I don't give up on guessing my next one.
Meet the Zaelibri 2 and the Zaelibri 4.
These both came out at the same time
and come with the nicknames,
the alien beauty and the dark hero.
I am actually not sure which one is supposed to be which
and I gotta confess, I had no idea these were
from Siemens.
I assume that they were from Zaelibri,
like a Chinese brand or something.
The alien beauty is available in soft colors
of aqua and white mauve.
Crap, I still don't know which one is which.
It hints at inner femininity, I guess.
It's this one then because it kind of looks
like a birth control packet.
Highlighted features include aerodynamic contours
and an unconventional, oh my God, that's the keypad.
That is truly atrocious.
It has an integrated back clip,
so you can wear it on a collar, cuff or bag.
Turn on the net.
Wow, that's a cool boot sound effect.
Both feature 101 by 65 pixel monochrome displays
and support 100 contacts in your phone book.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Is there like a taxidermy dog or what?
What?
Wait.
This is a really long commercial.
I guess the idea is you kind of dare to be different
or something or like, hey, please check date and time.
Let's go menu.
Massages, recent calls, clock.
God, that responsiveness though.
Hello?
I mean, there's no camera on it,
but you do get this handy little carrying strap.
Clock is a pictures, spirale, ringer melodies.
2001, $400.
Really?
This came three years after this?
What?
Okay.
Next up, we've got the Nokia N93.
This is also known as the camcorder phone.
Is that a lens cap?
You have got, to be kidding me, is this the ergonomics?
You got the screen like, oh no, no, it's like this.
Oh, no way.
It's like a transformer.
Oh, this is kind of sick.
Carl Zeiss lens, 3X optical, 3.2 megapixels.
This would have probably been a ball in camera at the time.
I can't believe it came with the lens cap.
It used a 332 megahertz dual arm 11 processor,
64 megabytes of RAM, 50 megabytes of storage.
So I guess you weren't recording a lot of video to it.
It had dual power inputs, either a barrel jack
or this big old connector.
And then what is this?
Please tell me this is micro SD expansion, it's gotta be.
Oh, oh, oh, color display.
Let's go 240 by 320.
Oh, oh, wow, that SIM mechanism though.
Whoo-ee, let's go.
Oh, wow, it rebooted pretty hard there.
Does not like having the SIM card swapped while it's on.
Whether we get the camera fired up or not,
it could do 480p video at 30 FPS
and had its own photo and video editor
along with a TV output and support for predictive text.
This must've been like 650 bucks.
That's definitely on the spot.
I see what they were going for with this one, right?
The side of your head, not flat.
Well, I have kind of hollow cheeks, but like Andy.
Oh, perfect.
It's the 8110, known as the banana phone
before the Matrix came out in 1999,
after which it was known as the Matrix phone.
That gives me a pretty good hint
as to the timeframe for it, but ooh, ooh.
Oh, oh, that's kind of cool.
Look, the ergonomics get even better.
Imagine putting a microphone right next to your mouth
where the other person might actually be able to hear you.
Check this out.
They've got these cool sliding contacts back here
and that's all wired up to the mic down there.
I actually kind of like that.
Clever mechanical design.
You just don't see much of it in phones these days.
Maybe the last really cool mechanical design
I saw on a phone was OnePlus's pop-up front-facing camera.
They don't want moving parts.
Moving parts aren't reliable.
This, we're going all the way back
from proprietary chargers to proprietary batteries.
Specific to the phone.
The display might not look like much,
but this monochrome graphic LCD was revolutionary
at the time.
It could display both English and Asian characters
with a resolution of four by 13 characters.
Wow, it could also hold 125 contacts in the phone book.
And I'm going to say in, I don't know, 1998 then.
A year before the movie, 500 bucks.
Hey, I'm not that far off then.
Whoa, it reveals the camera.
This is the Nokia 7280, also known as the lipstick phone.
It was inspired by the glamor and elegance
of the lavish 1920s.
It was a completely new mobile phone design
which forewent the traditional keypad
for a discreet, keyless dial.
Full-size sim.
I think we're golden.
I think it's charging.
All right, sick.
Okay, let's go to the menu.
Okay, what does this wheel do?
Go to menu.
Oh, oh, hello.
How the devil do I type?
Wait.
It suggests a handful of first characters, A, T, S, I, and O.
Then it's just the alphabet.
Oh, this is atrocious.
This would take 1,000 years to do anything useful with.
Display looks pretty good though.
Oh my goodness.
Look at that tiny little camera window.
Oh, I wonder if do I get this picture out of here now?
It's handy.
Oh, oh, oh, there we go.
How do I get to the right side of the image?
Oh, wow.
That is truly awful.
This thing sucks.
I'm gonna say 2009 and it's 500 bucks.
This had to display this good in 2004.
This was like an $800 US dollar phone.
This costs like a modern iPhone Max Pro Ultra thing.
This is fun.
Micro B charging, love to see it.
Compared to the alternatives we're looking at today.
Ooh, nice little charging indicator.
512 megs of storage.
Bluetooth 2.1.
Oh, it runs Android.
It's so adorable.
Ooh, that animation though.
Is that sparkle in the screen protector?
What?
Hey, but you know what's nice?
Has some pretty thoughtful features.
Easily replaceable battery.
Love to see it.
And check this out.
Just like an Instax camera.
It's got a little tiny mirror next to the rear camera
so that you can see if you're in the frame.
It's a 320 by 240, 2.8 inches.
Yes, this is just a home button.
Why it's there?
We'll never know.
This is not ergonomic.
It's like right here.
You can't hold it in a way that...
Okay, wow.
Memory full or no SD card.
Video capture length less than one second.
All right, sorry, I guess that won't be happening.
But at least it supported Micro SD.
This back button, hello?
Open phone for full screen capture.
Oh man, I suck at this.
250 bucks.
That's yikes.
I mean, at least it had a keyboard,
which at the time was a feature.
Oh, this thing would be infuriating to use.
Ooh, TV button.
The Virgin Mobile Lobster 700 TV.
So named because it was shaped like a lobster's claw.
This is the world's first DAB IP enabled headset.
Digital audio broadcasting over IP
and was nicknamed the telephone because it's a TV.
It has a 320 by 240 pixel display, 65,000 colors,
64 megs of RAM.
It's got a 1.3 megapixel camera
and uses a single core Texas Instruments processor.
It actually feels pretty robust.
Like I could imagine being in the store and being like,
yeah, I want a phone that I can just like huck around
and this seems like the one.
Oh, it runs Windows Mobile though.
Oh, that means I probably got game.
Hey, it's better to have game
than to not have game, you know what I'm saying?
Whoa, MP3 player.
As long as you don't mind using the little tiny jack
and the proprietary charger.
Or wait, is that Mini-B?
I think that's Mini-B.
All right, camera.
Let's open up the camera.
That shutters out.
What are you doing?
No touchscreen.
So we weren't at that stage yet.
It does have bubble breaker.
I played this game so much.
Definitely better with the stylus.
I'll tell you that much.
Well, I got to beat my bubble breaker high score.
420.
What?
2010, $400.
Damn it.
The Nokia 7600 Codename Mango,
also known as the Nokia Leaf.
This is one of their earliest 3G handsets
and was designed as a fashion product.
They gotta stop doing that.
This was the beginning of phones being impossible
to figure out how to open.
First, you have to pull off this, okay?
Because that makes perfect sense.
Then you like pull off this one or something.
Then you can slide it open.
Oh yeah, great, perfect, love it.
The trippiest part is that for every one of these,
they absolutely had to sell thousands and thousands
of units, otherwise they couldn't possibly cover
the tooling costs for it and development costs.
Like six maybe, sure, you can find someone
who's dumb enough to want a keypad like this,
but it's a two inch display running at 128 by 160,
65,000 colors.
It has 29 megabytes of storage,
meaning that that VGA camera is not gonna be taking
very many pictures.
And my notes here say it was considered difficult to use.
Let's dial a number.
Yeah, I can get there eventually.
This is awful, calculator, voice commands, that's it.
Oh wait, games, yes, yes, select it.
Puzzle, what is puzzle?
Okay, I'm losing points right now.
Yeah, I don't think we need to continue playing that game.
I do wanna try the camera though.
Standard, oh, portrait, got portrait mode.
Yeah, I'm gonna need the extra light.
It's awful.
2006, 300 bucks.
No wonder Apple came in and ate their lunch.
This is what Nokia was doing for stylish.
The PlayStation phone.
It has an LED backlit LCD that's 480 by 854,
16 by nine aspect ratio.
Ooh, slide up design with,
wow, a PlayStation controller.
It is freaking heavy.
Micro B charging.
All left and right shoulder buttons.
It's kind of wild that Sony doesn't cross pollinate
between their business units more, you know?
This hinge sucks.
Look at this, look how much play there is in this.
Gaming phone, if you can fit so much play in this bad boy,
uses a one gigahertz Scorpion CPU and an Adreno 205 GPU,
has 400 megabytes of storage.
It included an eight gig micro SD card though.
This is interesting.
The spec says 720p video,
but the end gadget review says it is not 720p.
So, got some controversy here.
Okay, SIM card goes in there.
Oh, a screw just came out.
This is an awful lot of phone taken up by things
that are not the text field that I am inputting to.
Oh yeah, that's haptic sounds that you hear.
They are awful.
What could go wrong?
Whoa, look at all these games.
Bruce Lee Dragon.
Oh, wait, please insert SD card.
Okay, fine, fine, fine.
I'll put in an SD card.
Darn it, ah, cut out.
All right, look at that.
I don't even need to take out the battery
and reboot for my SD card.
Let's go.
I have an SD card.
I wanna play FIFA 10.
40 megs is required.
I got the space.
Otter disappointment.
No wonder you failed.
I'm gonna say this was like 600 bucks in 2013.
Whoa, what is this?
The Motorola StarTac Rainbow.
Is this a front mounted battery?
What?
It's definitely cooler on a car.
This just looks like Fisher Price.
It had monophonic ringtones.
It had a two by 12 character display
and held a hundred contacts.
I'm gonna guess that this was like styling
and was like 600 bucks.
Wow, that's a thousand dollars for this?
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If you enjoyed this video,
make sure to check out the one where we looked
at weird keyboards from AliExpress.
Definitely a similar vibe.