Motorola introduced the first commercially available handheld mobile phone, the DynaTAC, in 1983.
The DynaTAC grew out of Motorola’s effort to make cellular calling portable instead of restricting mobile phones to cars. Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first well-known handheld mobile-phone call using a DynaTAC prototype on April 3, 1973. A decade of engineering, regulatory work, and network development followed before the product reached customers.
Motorola unveiled the DynaTAC on March 6, 1983. The DynaTAC 8000X received U.S. Federal Communications Commission approval later that year, and broad commercial availability began in April 1984. That explains why sources sometimes associate the phone with both 1983 and 1984: 1983 marks introduction and release, while 1984 marks wide retail availability.
The original phone was enormous by modern standards, weighing about 2.5 pounds and taking roughly 10 hours to charge. Its $3,995 price also made it a luxury product rather than a mass-market handset.