Nokia
8850

In 1995 Nokia established a design unit under the leadership of Frank Nuovo to influence the style of future mobile designs. In 1998 Nokia released the Nokia 8850, which was based on the Nokia 8210 which quickly established itself as a design classic and a much sought-after mobile. When it was launched the CEO of Nokia, Jorma Ollila, described the Nokia 8850 as "a landmark product for Nokia that represented the culmination of its efforts to develop a mobile phone that was both stylish and functional." He went on to say that he was "confident that the Nokia 8850 would be a success in the market." The phone had a brushed aluminium casing and a sliding cover that protected the keypad and was used to answer and terminate calls or to exit from menu items. However, with the slide closed, you could still access menu items and make calls from the phone book. The 8850 had a monochrome graphic five-line display and an address book that could store telephone numbers and associated names in either the phone's internal memory or the SIM card; both could store up to 250 entries. Speed dial access was provided on eight entries using the keys 2 -9, voice dialling could also be configured for eight entries and a separate ring tone could be assigned to the entries. Support was provided for SMS text messaging, including predictive text, and basic block graphic picture messages could also be sent and received. Call registers recorded the most recent 10 dialled, missed and received calls and timers recorded the duration of each call and the cumulative total. Additional functions included a clock with an alarm, a calculator and a calendar application in which you could insert text notes for each day. Four games were included: Snake, Memory, Logic and Rotation. Access to information services and downloaded ringtones was provided via Nokia's Smart Messaging service. This technology was a precursor to the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and was subsequently discontinued by Nokia (under pressure from mobile operators) in favour of the widespread adoption of WAP. An infra-red port provided external connectivity to other compatible mobiles allowing information to be exchanged. It also made it possible to extend games to support two-player mode. The port also made it possible to connect to a PC or other peripheral such as a printer. Some information courtesy of Nigel Linge & Andy Sutton, the authors of 30 Years of Mobile Phones in the UK (Paid Link)