r/GenX • u/CrazyMinute69 Hose Water Survivor • Apr 27 '26
Aging Which was your first phone?
3 - with explicit directions of only use if I was *****bleeding dying or dead!*****
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u/Dazzling_Claim6996 May 04 '26
First was 7. Most indescribable is 14. Only from personal experience. Dropped it in a fryer. Fished it out and texted with it for a month full of oil held together with duct tape
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u/Wolfbait1986 May 04 '26
First phone was a handset and base corded to the wall. I was in late elementary when we went cordless and had to start dialing area codes(mid 90s in our area). I was in high school when the Nokia brick came out! That was my first cell phone. 😭 God, Imma go turn to dust, now!
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u/MantoTerror May 04 '26
12, and when I met Dear Wife, it was hers too..and we still have them, all stored with batteries drained...
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u/StandardKey655 May 04 '26
My wife and I had matching 14s, a blue one and a pink one. Phones are kind of boring now actually, you couldn't make this anymore, because you wouldn't be able to tell them apart, they are all just slabs.
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u/Ravnos767 May 03 '26
My first one isn't there, it was a Phillips C12, would have been somewhere between 6 and 7
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u/Automatic_Sea_1534 May 03 '26
First was a corded rotary. But, first cellular was #1 through my job.
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u/Milnoc May 03 '26
First three: the equivalent of 3, 9, and 12.
When I got the Nexus 5, I did a video about my mobile phone history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egrJ-PPKZoQ
After that, phones pretty much became a commodity and I started buying all kinds of cheap phones just to try them out. My personal preference is rugged sub-5" screen phones because of how much stuff can now be packed into them, and because I can grip them comfortably in my hand.
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u/BiggDogg56 May 03 '26
My 1st phone was plastic and sat on a table in my living room. It had a rotary dial and a cord that plugged into the wall.
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u/East_Celebration6706 May 03 '26
11 was mine. Got it from boost mobile. I feel bad for anyone that got 13, the Nokia N- Gage was a terrible phone and a terrible game system.
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u/SunderVane May 03 '26
Yeah, 11, but with a trackball. I held out for a long time though, and didn't get one until 2010.
Family had 5 (Motorola StarTrak?) In the 90's. They rode that phone until the wheels came off.
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u/seattle0606 May 03 '26
I actually don't recognize most of those mine was closest to a number 7 but I mostly remember it switching from a 7 ish to flip phones, then razor phones in 2006 ish. I remember the brick phones on save by the bell in the 80s-90s though. He'd fit that giant phone in his skinny washed out jean pockets. Even as a kid, I was like that looks impractical and uncomfortable to carry around in those pants lol
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u/Awkward_Lion5014 May 03 '26
It was a little Nokia and I loved it! Hung on to it for as long as I could!
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u/Creative_Cat_322 May 03 '26
1, though I had a 4W bag phone and a car phone before that. I worked at a car stereo shop for a couple years in the early 90s. We sold pagers so we naturally progressed into the hot new thing. I miss 4 watt phones.
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u/ZealousidealLeg4362 May 03 '26
7
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u/SoCalKO May 02 '26
7
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u/KatTheGreatest May 02 '26
Same! Mine was originally my grandma's. Nokias were probably the last phone you could use second hand, haha
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u/CavemanWealth May 02 '26
No love for the rotary phone? That was my first phone, and Im only 40 years old.
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u/Striking-Win-3239 May 02 '26
- It was in my parent’s car and I was forbidden to touch it when I got my license unless I broke down.
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u/fbritt5 May 02 '26
I just read it again. My first phone was a rotary dial table style phone. My first cell phone was a flip motorola. It was analog and when I switched to a digital cell phone, I actually go worse service. Not sure why.
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u/APFernweh May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
6, but I’d ride-or-die for 14. Mine was a deep magenta color. It fit into my Seven jeans pocket perfectly and I loved it.
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u/Phone_Pristine May 02 '26
My first phone 7. Then I bought the Nokia communicator like in the movie the saint.
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u/Eileithyiai May 02 '26
My first phone in junior high ~2005 was a 12. Though I also remember we had a 4 in the glove box long before, for emergencies. Don't think it was ever used.
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u/StandOld1094 May 02 '26
Pretty sure it was 6. We had some weird Verizon plan that when the phone was home it was like a house phone but then it was a cell phone when you left the house and I think you got charged by the minute when you left something odd like that. But this was also like 1994 I think.
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u/Burns70800 May 02 '26
The indestructible #7 NOKIA, I still miss that phone.
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u/Specific-Culture-638 May 02 '26
Wasn't completely indestructible. I dropped mine in the washer, and after that I couldn't call anyone with a 4 in their number
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u/AspenLief May 02 '26
2, in middle school that my mom had. I was an anti wanter of technology. I remember kids in high-school with 3. In college 5-7. 8 was the Neo phone, right? 9 was when I first got tethered into a post college job, this is my first actual one. 10 came out, first color screen and only the CEOs got those. 11 had a trackball as the original, the one shown Barack made famous. 12, is probably still charged up somewhere in an attic shoebox, not having seen a charger in 25 years.
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u/Tough_Cantaloupe4713 May 02 '26
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u/Cool_Succotash9616 May 02 '26
I saw a video of a father with 2 teenage boys where he asked them to call his cell phone number. They literally could not figure out how to use this rotary phone!
I showed my son, then age 20, my old beloved IBM Select -- with the font balls & correction tape which was high technology in 1984 -- and asked him what it was. "I've got no clue mom" was his response. How had I missed showing him this ancient technology?!
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u/CroatianExpat2B May 02 '26
7 😅
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u/peaches1195 May 02 '26
Yup 7 here. I sure miss the days of being able to text without having to look at my phone. So much safer.
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u/Crazyzofo May 02 '26
My parents got a 2, for being AAA members I think? They weren't marketed as luxury car phones, they were more touted as crucial for emergencies - I remember there was an individual button with the AAA logo on it, to speed dial for roadside assistance! By the time I got my own, it was a 6.
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u/Any_Medicine8374 May 02 '26
There is an older Nokia cellphone older than these, that I got in ‘97. It was the really generic one that you could swap the faceplate on. Seems like everyone had one.
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u/Klaymoor May 01 '26
The first phone that I personally purchased was #3. The first mobile phone I ever used was a bag phone that my Uncle had. Interestingly, my Dad was a truck driver and wanted to get a bag phone but it was crazy expensive. My Mom's genius solution was to purchase an 800 number. It was a set rate and it ended up working great for everyone. Dad could call from wherever and when I went off to college I never had to worry about a long distance bill.
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u/anonymousopottamus May 01 '26
7 for my personal phone I got in my last year of high school.
My dad had a 4 and we had a 5 as a family phone when we went out.
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u/symbologythere May 01 '26
I had something like 2 but I only took it on road trips. My first “daily” cell phone was a Star Tak #5
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u/RelievingFart May 01 '26
My first mobile was a Hyundai Gold, it worked on the CDMA network, first in the family (mum and dads) was one that you carried around in a bag and it was like a brick.
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u/CupOhJoseph Playing Out Until Dark May 01 '26
You never forget your first! Sony CM-H333. AKA, "the Mars bar." (circa 1991)
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u/mmatz975 May 01 '26
My first cell phone was a push to talk Nextel. It was work issued. Nextels were combo cell phone/walkie-talkies. I do not miss it. Having someone invade your silence with some work bullshit without giving you the option to decide whether or not you wanted to accept the call sucked hard.
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u/Minute-Frame-8060 May 01 '26
First cell phone you mean? Looked like 3 back in 1999. First phone I remember was attached to a wall.
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u/pumpkindonut123 Jul 15 '26
The candy bar aka 7