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The world's first flip phone cost $1,000 in 1996. Here's what it bought you - CNET
Jul 02, 2020 2 mins, 26 secs

This special-edition Motorola StarTAC "Rainbow" version is about as vintage as you can get.

The folded-up flip phone sits in front of me like a child's plastic plaything, a rainbow of terraced ridges that starts with a bump the color of earwax before cascading down to blue, green, that sickly yellow again and finally to brick red on the back and sides. .

This StarTAC 70 "Rainbow" model that I snagged on eBay is a relatively rare variation of the Motorola StarTAC, an early "it" cell phone, and the world's first flip phone...

The Rainbow StarTAC version is from 1998, but Motorola -- already famous for placing the first-ever cell phone call in 1973 -- had applied for the StarTAC trademark three years before.

The original Motorola StarTAC was the sleek, bleeding edge of cell phone communication when it debuted in 1996 for $1,000.

The original StarTAC was so small by the standards of the day -- most phones were 5 to 7 inches tall -- Motorola called it a "wearable cellular telephone." Just add a hip holster.

Back then, few would have predicted that this toy of a cell phone resting on my knee would almost single-handedly change the world. .

The "bag phone," an earlier style of portable cell phone, came in a zippered pouch for "easy" conveyance.

Early Motorola advertising for StarTAC's "flappable" "wings." For the world's first flip phone, its benefits were an open and closed case?

After Motorola engineer Martin Cooper -- the one who made that infamous first cell phone call, watched an episode -- he had to make it happen.

The Tricorder communication device seen throughout the entire Star Trek franchise most closely resembles a cell phone plus PDA, or personal digital assistant, a somewhat bulky do-it-all device that mashed up a handheld computer with an always-on network -- flip panel and all (at least on later versions).

In the case of the modern flip phone, the story is entirely possible

"When the Motorola StarTac is opened, it turns into a really great looking communicator straight from the deck of the Starship Enterprise." (Popular Communications, June 1996)

As the world's first flip phone, the StarTAC inspired generations of phones, including today's Motorola Razr and Galaxy Z Flip foldables

It's Motorola we have to thank for the first cell phone, for the satisfying snap of flipping a clamshell phone closed, and for popularizing vibration mode. 

The StarTAC is undoubtedly a device with an unforgettable legacy, but it wouldn't have existed without the phones that came before -- the Motorola MicroTAC and the legendary DynaTAC before that, the prototype of which made the world's first cellular telephone call

Star Trek inspiration or not, the $1,000 Motorola StarTAC that flipped its way into history boldly went where no phone had gone before

I may have been too young in 1995 and 1996 to appreciate the sheer force of its innovation, but looking at the garish, er, vintage Rainbow flip phone in front of me now, I can absolutely confirm: it's bold

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