Primus Mobiles
PTL 898

When the PTL 898 was announced in the UK, Primus Mobiles declared it was the UK’s “first SIM-free camera video phone”. Primus Mobiles was the mobile arm of US-based Primus Telecommunications Group – which at the time claimed to be the world’s fifth-largest fixed-line international telecoms carrier. The company supported “low-cost international calls through its “unique GCS (Global Communication Services) service”. Apparently, the phone was “designed to appeal to consumers living in the UK who frequently call landlines abroad” and offered “savings of up to 80 percent on international calls”. The GCS service was accessed by pressing the blue “Primus P-Key” which would “instantly connect users to Primus’s global network enabling cheaper international calls”. The company’s executives trumpeted that it had found “a lot of foreign expatriates living in the UK in cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh”. They went on to say that “most of them are working professionals that probably prefer to call abroad at a reasonable time via their mobile phone” and that Primus’s GCS service would allow them to “integrate their modern working lifestyle with the convenience of calling home easily and at competitive rates”. The 300k pixel “camera / camcorder” on the front of the device allowed “up to 50 pictures and almost two minutes of video”. The phone also featured a 65k colour TFT screen and supported the multimedia messaging service (MMS). When the phone was launched it cost £150 and was sold via the Primus Mobile website and at “Primus Phone Shops” at Heathrow’s Terminal 1 and 2.