Panasonic
A100

The A100 was part of a series of phones introduced by Panasonic in 2004 comprising the A100, A101 and A102. They were described by the company as “simple, stylish and smaller than the average credit card”. When they were introduced, Panasonic executive, Masatoshi Kitade considered the A100 Series to be a natural extension of the company’s mini mobile phones which had “proved to be a huge success with male and female users alike”. Panasonic felt it was catering for customers who wanted “straightforward, no-nonsense handsets without compromising on style”. At launch the A100 was available in three colours (red, blue and black), however, the unit in the Mobile Phone Museum collection is a pink variant that was donated by a former Panasonic employee who customised it with a Hello Kitty charm from Japan. The phone was a tri-band GSM device and featured polyphonic ring tones, pre-loaded games and could store 250 contacts in the phonebook.