Deliberate Talks (Table For One): Motorola - The Mobile Phone That Changed the World | Pixelated Egg

[00:00:00] This is the table for one edition of the Deliberate Talks podcast and I'm Dakshin Adyanthaya your Monday brand storyteller

[00:00:07] here to share another piece of brand history and

[00:00:10] Today it's all about the pioneering spirit of the mobile technology and all about the Dynatac

[00:00:18] 8000x by Motorola, but before that here's a quick intro

[00:00:26] This is the Deliberate Talks weekly podcast

[00:00:30] powered by the pixelated egg digital ventures

[00:00:35] So revined to the year 1983 the Dynatac 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone

[00:00:46] developed by a team at Motorola and led by Martin Cooper a man often credited as the father of cell phone

[00:00:54] Martin Cooper who led the team that developed the first practical mobile phone had mentioned that his inspiration came partly

[00:01:01] from the science fiction series the Star Trek which featured characters using small handheld communicators

[00:01:11] Eventually this phone marked a significant

[00:01:14] technological breakthrough in the wireless communication segment turning the portable concept of a phone called from a location-based

[00:01:22] activity into something that you could do anywhere

[00:01:25] But the name Dynatac was an abbreviation of dynamic adaptive total area coverage

[00:01:31] But was often known as the brick phone

[00:01:34] That's because the phone weighed almost 2.5 pounds and was 13 inches long

[00:01:39] It featured a basic LED screen for dialing numbers and its battery provided about

[00:01:45] 30 minutes of talk time with the recharge time of about 10 hours

[00:01:50] Also, the phone back then costed four thousand dollars which translates to nearly the value of eleven thousand dollars today

[00:01:58] In spite of all this the Dynatac quickly became a cultural icon

[00:02:03] Featuring in movies TV shows and was associated with high-powered business executives

[00:02:09] It famously appeared in the movie Wall Street where the character Gordon Gekko used it to denote the high-flying lifestyle of the

[00:02:16] 1980s

[00:02:18] But despite its popularity many people viewed it as an unnecessary luxury and was skeptical about carrying a phone everywhere

[00:02:26] This skepticism was fueled by concerns about privacy the social implication of always being reachable and the visible

[00:02:34] Ostentation of using such an expensive gadget in the public

[00:02:38] Eventually it was believed that Costa Sirio Tarkas who bought this phone for fifty five dollars in

[00:02:44] 2022 claimed that the last ever commercial call on this phone was done in June

[00:02:51] 2007 just before the network operators Roger Weil is switched off its analog services and while the exact sales figure of the entire

[00:02:59] Lifetime of this product are commonly not detailed in public records

[00:03:03] It's known that Motorola sold over tens of thousands of such units in the first few years following its launch

[00:03:11] So from its heavyweight design to its status as a pop culture staple

[00:03:16] That's a slice of how Motorola Dynatech 8000x

[00:03:20] Revolutionized the way we communicate it forever. That's it for today

[00:03:24] Don't forget to subscribe to the audio and video channels of the deliberate talks podcast

[00:03:29] Join me next week for a table for two edition until then be curious be adventurous and never stop learning. Cheers