We’re living in an era where our cell phones and their capabilities are more important to us than ever. After all, what can’t we do on our phones today with 5G wireless service? We can watch TV, listen to music, take professional-grade photographs of loved ones, read the news, and even lock the front door to our homes with them. We have certainly come a long way from the first mobile phones where the most fun you could have was by playing Snake for hours. Even so, sometimes a bit of nostalgia can be fun to explore.
Below, we’re giving you a jolt of early 2000s nostalgia by jogging your memory of the phones you once loved dearly. From the T-Mobile Sidekick your parents gave you after months of begging to the Blackberry you bought for yourself when you wanted to look cool at your new job, we’re running down the list of phones from days gone by.
Here are the phones
T-Mobile Sidekick
A popular phone choice of the early 2000s, many people can recall having this phone in high school or college. With buttons and a touch screen front accompanied by a sliding screen that hid a keyboard, this unique phone starting pushing boundaries with its style and design. The versatility of being able to type on a touch screen or an actual keyboard also didn’t hurt, as it gave people the option of how to communicate with friends and others.
Motorola Razr
In early 2004, the Motorola Razr exploded onto the scene and disrupted the mobile phone industry with its hip new design. With its backlit keyboard, brushed metallic colors of pink or gold, and super-thin structure, this phone felt delicate and fashionable yet strong and cool. Its sleek look allowed it to serve an aesthetic purpose while also being utilitarian in that it fit perfectly into a small pocket. Having recently been making a comeback, the Motorola Razr is definitely a nostalgic look into the past that is clearly still garnering attention and fans.
LG enV
Colors, above all else, are what used to capture customers. The LG Env, available in either gray or bright orange, was a fashion statement just as it was a utilitarian object. With a smaller text screen on the front, the enV also could be opened up to reveal a full keyboard you might find on a full-sized computer. The fact that you could fit it in your pocket only made it more exciting.
LG Chocolate
Mm, chocolate. Who doesn’t love it? When the LG Chocolate collection hit the stores, people raced to buy them as if they were purchasing actual chocolate bars. And, like the candy, these phones just sounded rich and delectable. A simple phone, the marketing behind the collection is probably responsible for the majority of its success. Customers could purchase this phone in a variety of hues included Dark Chocolate, Mint Chocolate, White Chocolate, Strawberry Chocolate, and Cherry Chocolate, all of which had colors corresponding to their “flavors.” In terms of structure, the device had a circular control panel and keypad hidden beneath a slide-up screen, as well as exciting MP3 capabilities.
LG Voyager
Those hidden keyboards were definitely popular with the early 2000s crowd. The versatility of being able to use either the fun touch-screen to type or flip it open to use as a super-mini laptop was so fun for users who enjoyed being able to text the way they wanted. Even today, there are people who long for the old design of phones like the LG Voyager.
Blackberry Pearl
Though Blackberries were originally intended for businesspeople, making them feel significant in the tech world, the new phone they released in 2006 was made more for a general population. The Pearl was the first of its kind to have a trackball, which later became a trademark of Blackberry, and it was also the first to have a camera and the capability to play music.
Nokia
Over the years, Nokia created so many phones that it’s hard to choose which was the most iconic. For the majority of their cell phones, they maintained a relatively consistent design that didn’t often stray from the original, which was something Nokia fans seemed to love. Built to last, the classic Nokia phone is essentially an indestructible brick with a small, durable screen and number pad for typing and dialing.
HTC Dream
Since the beginning, Android and iPhone have been in constant competition. After the release of the very first iPhone, the race to develop the best smartphone device was heated. Android’s response to the iPhone was the HTC Dream, a phone that had a similar slide-up screen design to the Sidekick that hid its keyboard below. Not the most exciting of phones, but certainly a competitor.
Samsung Solstice
Samsung definitely took notes from the iPhone when it was released. The Solstice phone features a touch screen that is accompanied by three buttons on the front and has apps with drag-and-drop capabilities and widgets. The music player, GPS navigation, microSD slot, and 2-megapixel camera were among the many features that made the Samsung Solstice a worthy player in the smartphone game of the early 2000s.
Apple iPhone
How could we even think of leaving out the iPhone? Known to be the most revolutionary phone to ever be released, especially because it led to the creation of the entire iPhone collection, the first iPhone was a relatively thin rectangle that featured an entirely-touch screen and just one button on the front. With only one camera lens on the back of the phone, this device led the way for the line of phones we see today that consist of just touch screens. Certainly, the iPhone technology was ahead of its time.
