My Favourite Mobile Phone

~ beetleypete

The first mobile phone I ever bought was the Motorola StarTAC.

STAR TAC mobile telephone by Motorola,

As you can see, this was a ‘flip’ phone that closed down to a small and manageable size. The flip action also terminated the call, making sure that you were not still connected by mistake.

The SIM card was the size of a credit card, and slid into a narrow slot on the phone.

It had no camera.
It could not connect to the Internet
It could only make calls and send a text.

But.

It never failed to connect, and stay connected.
Any call made on it was as clear as anything, and never fuzzy or muffled.
You only had to extend the short aerial to always guarantee a signal. (At least in London, where I lived at the time).
I had it on a ‘Pay and Go’ deal, where I topped up the amount I needed. No monthly fee.
The battery lasted for days on end.

I don’t know where it is now, or even if it would still work.
But I wish I had never upgraded from it.

78 thoughts on “My Favourite Mobile Phone”

  1. Pingback: My Favourite Mobile Phone — beetleypete – Cosmos

  3. They had real buttons too. I don’t have fat fingers but still miss hit when I try to txt quickly. I do like the camera though. I have no skill as a photographer but since getting my smartphone I can actually take photos that look like what I’m trying to capture!

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      1. -blush- I had a digital camera once, a little dinky one, but I never used it so the camera on the phone has brought about quite a change in my behaviour. Sadly the quality of the photos is still let down by the idiot pressing the button. 😀

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  7. I managed to get by on hand me downs for quite a while, my first of which was the Nokia banana phone made famous in the Matrix. I have only ever bought one new smart phone, a Nokia Lumia, from the period when Microsoft bought Nokia, and we all know how that ended, ever since then I always buy second hand.
    As long as I can get on the internet to listen to the radio, or call Gpsia to tell her I’m being mauled by a herd of rabid goats and need help, then I’m happy 🙂

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      1. My Motorola was very strong. I carried it around on me for a long time, and it didn’t even become loose. But I agree that you have to be careful once they are open.
        Best wishes, Pete.

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            1. You had also mentioned experiencing gastric reflux that is related to spicy food. Is this a recurring issue or is it an on and off thing in the sense that you can handle a reasonable amount of spicy food, however you elect not to push the envelope?

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    2. So true, I try to like the block editor by using it making one small progress at a time. Today, I discovered that my picture gallery had piled the photos up in three of each! I deleted the surplus and the draft was still intact!

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      2. Oh my, that’s a new one for me. It seems everyone is getting an assortment of problems. I tried to edit a draft and I could not get the media added. The usual little icon was gone and nothing I clicked brought it back. So that post will have to be started all over again. This is no long fun.

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  14. sometimes in the name of progress we loose the basic intent of a phone. I wonder how many actually use a cell phone for a voice call nowadays

    I’m sure the designer was a star trek fan beam me up scotty

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  17. We have the twin.
    Motorola used to be so good.
    Loved my Blackberry, too – fast and easy.
    My iPhone is ancient (but so easy to take pictures and port to computer). Not upgrading until 4G stops working.
    I don’t “surf” net on it or do FB. Calls, texts, and photos are sufficient.
    Simple is turning out to be better than good

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  19. You know those good old days where mobile phones were used for making calls? Yeah…I don’t remember them either 😂😂
    I also had a flip phone, and I upgraded it to a new ‘smart” phone about 3 years ago. Don’t know if that was so smart a move though……🤔🤔🤔

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  21. I loved my flip phone and mine was bright red, matching my business suits. My last one, that I gave up reluctantly, took pictures too. I gave it to my grandson. I need to buy a bigger handbag for my new Smartphone.

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  22. I’m sticking to my old Samsung. It doesn’t take pics but I can make and receive calls and text. It does have a problem if someone sends me a very long text and cuts all but the first lines and sends me a series of wee boxes with a ?. Most people don’t send long texts.

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  23. I don’t believe pre-2000 phones work now because they changed the signal. But ha! I have not upgraded from my Siemens A55 bought in 2003, with every one of the features (or lack of them) mentioned in your post except no aerial and a smaller sim card.

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  25. Pete, it’s always funny to watch films from the 90’s, when characters took calls on a cellular phone the size of a she box…this flip-phone is such a thing of the past, but you know what? It did what it was supposed to do, without so many complications!

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  26. I bought my husband a ‘burner’ phone when Microsoft stopped supporting the Windows phone OS on his his Lumia. It cost £20 and the battery lasts for days. No internet and, although it has a camera, you need to insert a card if you want to use it. He’d never got on with the Lumia after his old Nokia died and had trouble fiiguring out his text messages from his emails.
    Sadly his current ‘burner’ Nokia is on the small side for his fingers, but he still prefers it to a smart phone.

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