Although Motorola already had a working prototype in 1973,  the first commercial cell phone would still take a decade to reach the market after a $100 million development. Motorola’s DynaTAC 8000X had “mobile” technology, very impractical compared to today’s standards but quite a bit compared to those of the time. 

The DynaTAC 8000X was the first to be used with one hand, the “father” of today’s cell phones. It weighed 800 grams and its dimensions were 33 centimeters high, which without an antenna remained at 25, 4.5 wide and 8.9 thick. The battery gave it an autonomy of half an hour in conversation and its recharge took 10, although Motorola launched a fast charger that could be bought separately and fulfilled the function in just one hour. It had a small LED screen, a 30-digit address book and a price tag that makes the current iPhone 14 Pro Max look like a bargain: $4,000 at the time (more than $10,000 today). Motorola sold more than 300,000 units in the first year whose buyers were top executives, heads of state and politicians.