The Evolution of the Cell Phone — How Far It's Come!

The first foray into truly portable devices was the clamshell form factor. Motorola was a pioneer in this front, with the MicroTAC, which looked much like the one 1989 Whoopi Goldberg was using.

The MicroTAC had a red LED display and a standard 12-button keypad, plus a menu of options including a calculator, hands-free operation, keypad tones, and much, much more. By the time that MicroTAC was announced, the phone still cost consumers upward of $2,500.