Top 10 Old School Phones We Miss

This unusual hybrid phone pushed boundaries when it was released in 2007. On the surface, the LG “Envy” looks like just another small phone with a basic keyboard, but the whole front flips open sideways on a set of hinges. This reveals a second screen, a full keyboard, and a set of pretty impressive speakers for a cell. The strange formula endured for a few more years, with subsequent enV models all retaining the core gimmick of another screen and a full keyboard. But unfortunately, this novelty couldn’t outlast the looming wave of touchscreen smartphones, despite later models opting for a touchscreen as well.

This phone will go down as having one of the most influential designs in history, as the first-ever flip phone. After the release of the StarTAC, clamshell phones became the norm; after all, you just can’t beat the satisfaction of flipping one open and closed to accept and end calls. It was also one of the first phones to prioritize aesthetics as well as functionality, which rival brands like Nokia weren’t too bothered with, and was even the first phone to have a vibrate feature. At the time, though, a StarTAC set consumers back $1000, making it about as pricey as a brand-new iPhone today.

After the release of the first iPhone took the world by storm, rivals were left scrambling to come up with something to challenge it, and this is what they came up with. The HTC Dream (or, T-Mobile G1) didn’t have the large touchscreen the iPhone did, still relying on a slide-out qwerty keyboard, but it did have something else: the Android operating system. Today, all the major competitors to Apple run on Android systems, and this phone is responsible. While the first version of Android certainly wasn’t as sleek as we’re used to, it did have the huge customizability and versatility that the system is still known for.

This iconic device proves that many people would still rather have reliability over flashy graphics, the former being a quality the Nokia 3310 had in droves. It might not have had a big keyboard or a screen with a lot of colors, but it did have a battery that could last for days, if not weeks, and was basically unbreakable. It was also very customizable, with a seemingly infinite number of snap-on cases, making no two phones the same, and its affordability meant it sold well over 100 million units globally. Its contribution to texting culture and, of course, the popularization of Snake, can’t be understated. It even got a re-release in 2017.

The cell phone certainly was a game-changing device in so many ways, but before it, we had the iconic Walkman, a tape deck you could take anywhere. Launched in 1979, it was only a matter of time before Sony combined their devices, and so in 2005 they gave us the Sony Ericsson W800, the first phone to use the Walkman brand. Sony Ericsson was ahead of the curve by combining phones and MP3 players, and the impact of having a device that also stored your music efficiently and made it available on the go was huge. Granted, the phone’s bright orange color scheme does date it quite a bit.

Portable gaming was in full stride in 2003, with the release of the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS still a bit on the horizon. Bridging this gap was the pricey and unusual Nokia N-Gage, which featured a whole lot of buttons with quite a small screen sandwiched in the center between them. It was a handheld games console that could also make calls, send texts, and play music. Nowadays, mobile gaming is even bigger business, making the N-Gage ahead of its time in a lot of ways. It was weird, expensive, and the games were limited, but its boldness and quirky design definitely made it memorable.

For a long time, BlackBerry dominated the market of professionals who needed a phone to replace absent PDAs, but the Curve 8900 iteration really brought this distinct brand to the masses. With its small, full physical keyboard on the front rather than sliding out to the side, it was certainly impactful, and this style of keyboard placement persists even on touchscreen smartphones today. As phones slowly started to stop being just phones and take on more and more media features, BlackBerry was there at the beginning, offering a multimedia device that could briefly hold its own against the iPhone.

This handset was already tapping into the nostalgia market in 2006 when touchscreens were just beginning to get popular. A stylish sliding phone, the North American version of the Chocolate, the VX8500, had some great branding, making it much more memorable than rival devices titled simply with long numbers. The Chocolate was appealing with punchy aesthetics, sold in a variety of colors with variant names like “Cherry Chocolate”, “White Chocolate” and “Strawberry Chocolate.” We sense a theme! Small and sleek, the Chocolate did pretty much everything you could expect from a phone of the era, and you could upgrade its memory significantly to store all the music it could play.

Also known as the T-Mobile Sidekick, this phone was innovative in more ways than most. In a time when smaller was better where phones were concerned, it broke the mold by being larger than most, packing in plenty of cool features in the additional space – including a big keyboard and a large, slide-out screen. Distinct appearance aside, it was also the first phone to popularize mobile Internet, integrating things like instant messaging, email, and even an early version of cloud storage. The Sidekick made cell phones for everybody and pushed the boundaries of what they could do.

Relatively affordable after its initial price was dropped, functional yet infinitely stylish . . . everybody had a Motorola Razr at one point or another. Over the lifespan of the original Razr line it sold roughly 130 million units, and came in so many variations, that even though everybody had one, yours still didn’t feel too samey. After all, the clamshell came in classic colors like silver, black and blue, but also red, hot pink, and even gold. Its dual display also made it popular, as you could check the time and if you had any messages on a miniature screen on the outside of the lid. The Razr is so iconic, and its appeal so enduring, that in 2019, a modernized smartphone relaunch was announced for 2020, that you will also be able to flip open and shut, perfect for fidgeting!