who created the first cell phone
The first handheld cell phone was created by Martin Cooper and his team at Motorola, and he made the first public call on it on April 3, 1973.
Quick Scoop: Who Created the First Cell Phone?
- The first handheld cell phone was developed at Motorola in the early 1970s.
- The project was led by engineer Martin Cooper, now widely called the “father of the cell phone.”
- On April 3, 1973, in New York City, Cooper made the first public mobile call from a prototype called DynaTAC.
- He famously called his rival, Joel Engel at Bell Labs, and told him he was calling from a real handheld cell phone.
A Tiny Story From 1973
Picture a busy Manhattan sidewalk in April 1973. Martin Cooper steps outside with a chunky, brick‑like device that weighs over a kilogram and has a big antenna sticking out. He dials Joel Engel, a leading engineer at competing Bell Labs, and says something like:
“Joel, this is Marty. I’m calling you from a cell phone – a real, handheld, portable cell phone.”
For everyone around, it looks like science fiction in real life; up to then, mobile telephony mainly meant car phones and bulky radio systems, not something you could hold in one hand.
Key Facts in Bullet Points
- Inventor/lead engineer : Martin Cooper, head of Motorola’s communications systems division.
- Company : Motorola (not AT&T or Bell Labs, who were focusing more on car phones).
- First public handheld call : April 3, 1973, New York City.
- Prototype name : Early version of what became the Motorola DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage).
- First commercial handheld phone : Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, approved in 1983 and sold starting March 1983.
- Weight and battery : Around 2.5 pounds (over 1 kg), roughly 20–30 minutes of talk time and many hours to recharge.
Handheld vs. “Mobile” Before That
Before Cooper’s handheld phone, there were other forms of mobile telephony:
- Car phones had been used in some cities since the mid‑1900s, but they needed powerful transmitters and were not truly portable.
- Bell Labs had already developed the concept of a cellular network (dividing areas into “cells” so calls could hand off between towers) and pushed it with regulators.
So, while many engineers and companies contributed to cellular technology , Martin Cooper and his Motorola team built and demonstrated the first truly handheld cell phone that you could carry on the street.
Simple Timeline (HTML Table)
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1940s–1960s | Early mobile radio and car phone systems develop; Bell Labs refines cellular network concepts. | [10][6]
| 1972–1973 | Martin Cooper leads Motorola team to build the first handheld cell phone (DynaTAC prototype). | [2][1]
| April 3, 1973 | First public handheld cell phone call by Martin Cooper in New York City. | [3][1][2]
| 1983 | Motorola DynaTAC 8000X becomes the first commercially available handheld cell phone. | [9][6]