0Mobira
Cityman 1320
Announced
27 May 1987
Weight
760 grams
Features
Nokia-Mobira Oy was established in 1984 to produce transportables for the Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) network. However, the Nokia-Mobira Cityman 1320 was it's first truly hand held mobile. The phone was also known as the Mobilr Cityman Superline 1320.
The phone was released in 1987 and became a direct competitor to the Motorola 8000X range. By 1988 Nokia had secured 13.5 percent of the mobile phone market, helped by the success of the Cityman 1320.
The Nokia Cityman was released in three versions, the Cityman 450 for the NMT-450 network, the Cityman 900 for the NMT-900 network and this one, and the Cityman 1320 for the broader European ETACS network.
Nokia-Mobira famously staged a photo opportunity in 1989 with the then-Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev, making a call using a Cityman mobile from Helsinki to Moscow (see below), which resulted in these phones being nicknamed "Gorbas". Interestingly, the phone used by Gorbachev was first dismantled by his security team to check it did not contain a bomb.
Lehtikuva/Shutterstock
The phone's screen could display up to eight characters of a telephone number, although a total of 16 digits could be keyed into the phone. Users could toggle the screen to display digits not shown on the screen by pressing and holding down the SEL key. The number would disappear from the display 30 seconds after the last number key was pressed to save battery life. The phone would also turn itself after 12 hours of no use.
Other indicators on the screen were the SVC indicator which showed whether the network was available, and the ON indicator which appeared when the PWR button was pressed to show the phone was ready for use.
There was a security feature that allowed users to lock the phone and this was shown by the LCK indicator appearing on the screen. When locked, incoming calls could be answered but outgoing calls and access to telephone numbers stored in the memory were restricted. The only numbers that could be accessed and dialled when the unit was locked were the five "partial-lock" memory locations.
The only items shown on the display were the SEL indicator which was used to access additional functions on the phone, a ROAM indicator for use "in the event of inter-system roaming became available" and the IN USE indicator, which came on when a call was "being processed" or was in progress.
Every Cityman phone had its own number programmed into memory location 51. This was primarily for service engineers to access the number, but users could press SEL + RCL + 51 to access it themselves.
Some information courtesy of Nigel Linge & Andy Sutton, the authors of 30 Years of Mobile Phones in the UK (Paid Link)
Nokia-Mobira famously staged a photo opportunity in 1989 with the then-Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev, making a call using a Cityman mobile from Helsinki to Moscow (see below), which resulted in these phones being nicknamed "Gorbas". Interestingly, the phone used by Gorbachev was first dismantled by his security team to check it did not contain a bomb.
Lehtikuva/Shutterstock
The phone's screen could display up to eight characters of a telephone number, although a total of 16 digits could be keyed into the phone. Users could toggle the screen to display digits not shown on the screen by pressing and holding down the SEL key. The number would disappear from the display 30 seconds after the last number key was pressed to save battery life. The phone would also turn itself after 12 hours of no use.
Other indicators on the screen were the SVC indicator which showed whether the network was available, and the ON indicator which appeared when the PWR button was pressed to show the phone was ready for use.
There was a security feature that allowed users to lock the phone and this was shown by the LCK indicator appearing on the screen. When locked, incoming calls could be answered but outgoing calls and access to telephone numbers stored in the memory were restricted. The only numbers that could be accessed and dialled when the unit was locked were the five "partial-lock" memory locations.
The only items shown on the display were the SEL indicator which was used to access additional functions on the phone, a ROAM indicator for use "in the event of inter-system roaming became available" and the IN USE indicator, which came on when a call was "being processed" or was in progress.
Every Cityman phone had its own number programmed into memory location 51. This was primarily for service engineers to access the number, but users could press SEL + RCL + 51 to access it themselves.
Some information courtesy of Nigel Linge & Andy Sutton, the authors of 30 Years of Mobile Phones in the UK (Paid Link) 