21 years of Sony Ericsson technology

Did you know that the origins of the Sony Ericsson W890i Walkman phone go back 132 years?

It all started in 1876 when Lars Magnus Ericsson and Carl Johan Andersson founded Ericsson. The future mobile phone company started small, opening a small telegraph repair workshop in a rented kitchen in Stockholm.

Ex-Motorola General Manager Dr Martin Cooper is acknowledged to have made the world's first cellular phone call on a prototype DynaTAC 8000X. This handset weighed 670g, cost nearly $4,000 and had a 14cm antenna.

But in the 21 years since Ericsson launched its first mobile phone, technology has advanced in leaps and bounds. Here's our timeline of the changes:

1987 - The 'Curt' becomes the first Ericsson handheld phone. It was developed from a police radio design and used the Nordic Mobile Telephone System or NMT450. NMT operated in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. The Curt later becomes known as the Hotline Pocket. 1989 - Ericsson launches the 'Olivia', much like its 1987 'Curt' model but slightly slimmer and featuring a neat fold-down antenna. Originally designed for the NMT network, it eventually becomes Ericsson's first GSM phone in 1991.

1991 - The first GSM (Global System for Mobiles) network is launched by Radiolinja in Finland. The first GSM call is placed in July. Harri Holkeri, governor of the Bank of Finland, apparently telephoned the mayor of Helsinki to talk about the price of Baltic herring.

1994 - SMS text messaging launches.

1996 - Ericsson launches the GA628 handset, which featured a Z80 microprocessor. It featured a one-line, monochromatic 12-character display and was capable of sending text messages. And that was about it.

1998 - The SH888 debuts. What it lacked in good looks, the weighty SH888 more than made up for with durability. Thanks to a tough magnesium alloy shell, you could practically drive a car over this handset without damaging it. The SH888 featured a three-line, alphanumeric display, plus a built-in 14.4kbps modem. It could be connected to a laptop either via Infrared or using a Serial cable.

1999 - Enter the Ericsson A1018s, notable for using a three-line monochrome graphic display rather than an alphanumeric one. The Ericsson T28 was also unveiled in this year, the first phone to use Lithium Polymer battery cells. The advantage? A Li-Poly battery was lighter and could be moulded to fit the back of the phone.

2000 - Another year of technology firsts. The T36 became Ericsson's first tri-band Bluetooth phone and featured a four-line graphic display. Meanwhile the clever R380 pioneered Symbian's EPOC OS. With its touch screen, PDA functionality and WAP Internet access, the R380 was a 'smartphone' in every sense of the word.

2001 - Ericsson adds basic GPRS to the R520 and teams up with Sony for 'Sony Ericsson' joint venture.

2002 - Remember the T68i? Not only did it neatly integrate the antenna into the casing, but it was Sony Ericsson's first mobile phone to feature a 256-colour display. The 84g T68i was also the first handset to use MMS.

2003 - Sony Ericsson launches its first clamshell phone, the Z200. It also impressed with the stylish, camera-equipped T610. But 2003 arguably belonged to the P800 multimedia phone, a classy and colourful update of Ericsson's first smartphone effort, the R380.

2004 - Say 'hello' to the Z1010, Sony Ericsson's first 3G phone capable of mobile broadband connectivity at speeds up to 384kbps.

2005 - Sony Ericsson launches the W800, its first 'Walkman'-branded phone. The W800 included a 512MB Memory Stick Duo that could hold up to 30 hours of digital music.

2006 - Having already blended 'phone + Walkman', Sony Ericsson's K800 and K790 handsets became the company's first Cyber-shot models, each one boasting a 3.2 megapixel camera.

2007 - The Z750i takes its place in the Sony Ericsson line-up as the first tri-band HSDPA and quad-band EDGE-enabled phone. HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) is also known as 3.5G and increases mobile broadband access to speeds of 1.8Mbps and higher.

2008 - We're bang up to date and Sony Ericsson is readying the W760 (its first phone to feature GPS), the Xperia X1 (its first Windows Mobile phone) and the W890i Walkman ® phone, the latest in the Walkman range.

*) 1910 - Research suggests that Lars Magnus Ericsson had a working car telephone. Ericsson used two long sticks to tap into existing overhead telephone wires in order to make calls!

advertisement