Motorola
StarTAC 2004

This reboot of the iconic StarTAC was developed especially for the South Korean market and was supplied exclusively to the local CDMA network operator SK Telecom. It was designed to take advantage of the popularity of the original StarTAC which sold 1.3 million units between 1996 and 2000. The StarTAC 2004 was immediately popular, selling approximately 20,000 to 30,000 units per week and capturing more than 10% market share in March 2004. Motorola anticipated it would be able to sell at least 100,000 units over the lifetime of the device. There are some clear design similarities to the original StarTAC but from a technology perspective, it was a full update including a 262,000-color TFT LCD screen, Internet access and more. The phone came in several colours: black, gold, blue, red and white. There was also a special variant which featured 18 caret gold inserts for the Motorola logo and the nameplate on the front of the phone.