Imagine it: it's the early 2000’s you’ve called your best friend because it’s past 9:00 PM so your minutes are free, you finish your conversation and snap your phone shut. Was there anything more satisfying?
In 1996 the Motorola StarTac flip phone was released. Weighing only 88 grams the phone brought a lot of changes to the technology world. Not only was the phone smaller than any other on the market at the time, it also introduced a vibration alert feature instead of a ringtone, and an option for a lithium-ion battery instead of the standard at the time NiMH low capacity battery.
In 2005 the iconic Motorola Razr came out, it was one of the first phones of its kind that offered so many different color options. Marketing itself as the fashion phone, on December 8th Motorola announced a partnership with Dolce & Gabbana. Aside from being the only hot pink phone you could get at the time it was also one of the only phones that had a 2.0 megapixel camera, and 50 MB internal storage.
In the late 2000’s the first iPhone came out and the popularity of flip phones died down. Just like most of the 2000's fashion flip phones are coming back into style. In 2019 Motorola announced the relaunch of the Razr, and Nokia is rebranding their flip phones to meet today's technology needs.
Samsung has taken the reintroduction of the flip phone to a whole new level with the Samsung Z Flip3. Weighing just less than 100 grams more than the first flip phone the phone offers a 12 megapixel camera and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. Sadly though, the phone has a more delicate screen so you can’t snap it shut after a heated argument.
Even though minutes are no longer free after 9:00 PM and you can’t aggressively close your phone, companies like Motorola and Samsung are making up for it by advancing the technology used in flip phones. It leaves you wondering, what’s next?