When Phones Were Fun: Nokia's Star Trek Communicator (2009)

Sponsored by Incogni. The first 100 people to use code MRMOBILE at this link get 20% off: [WHEN PHONES WERE FUN: NOKIA STAR TREK COMMUNICATOR] Star Trek may not have directly inspired the first mobile phones … but when it came to giving the cell phone a pocketable form factor, the name “Motorola StarTAC” kinda tells the whole story (don’t @ me, Total Area Coverage stans!). With the StarTAC – which I covered in an earlier installment of this series – a generation of Star Trek fans that had waited three decades for a flip-top mobile communicator finally got something that at least felt close. But it would take another ten years before the cellphone industry finally gave Trekkies a proper “Star Trek phone” … only to cruelly beam it away before it ever saw the light of day. I found one on eBay about twelve years ago – and now, at the dawn of a beautiful new era of televised Star Trek, seems the perfect time to tell the tale of the Nokia Starfleet Communicator that never was.  [SUBSCRIBE TO MRMOBILE] [ABOUT WHEN PHONES WERE FUN – NOKIA STAR TREK COMMUNICATOR] This is the nineteenth in a series of MrMobile videos exploring the mobile tech world's most vibrant period in design and experimentation. In “When Phones Were Fun,” Michael Fisher re-reviews cellphones from the golden age of mobile, the decade-long span from the turn of the century to approximately 2009. When Phones Were Fun: Episode 19 features the only known Nokia Star Trek Communicator device, number 05 of 12, purchased by Michael Fisher in 2010. No manufacturer or carrier paid a fee or otherwise offered compensation in exchange for this coverage, nor did any such company preview or approve this content before publication. The lone sponsor of this video is Incogni. [MRMOBILE’S WARDROBE PROVIDED BY VOLANTE DESIGN] Starfleet 2256 jacket [Volante Design]: [LINKS] Avi Greengart [Techsponential]: Cingular Releases Star Trek Phone as 3125 [TrekToday]: Create a Star Trek Communicator Edition RAZR [Instructables]: How-To: Make A Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator [Make]: HTC 3126 / Smartflip / 8500 / Star Trek [PhoneScoop]: iPhone and Android biggest winners in mobile market in 2009 [Ars Technica]: Meet “The Father Of The Cellphone,“ Dr. Martin Cooper [Pocketnow]: Sound Effects: TrekCore Special Edition Star Trek Communicator Phone [UberGizmo]: Star Trek Communicator Phone by Sona Mobile [Internet Archive]: :// Star Trek Nokia 5800: Set half-assed movie tie-ins to stun [CNET]: Star Trek: Why Enterprise Was Cancelled [ScreenRant]: Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As “Fun, Watchable” [The Onion]: [MUSIC] “Moon Traveling“ by Neon Beach [Soundstripe]: “Retro Waves“ by Mikey Geiger [Soundstripe]: “Welcome to the Apocalypse“ by Neon Beach [Soundstripe]: [CHAPTERS] 00:00 From Star Trek To StarTAC ... 01:13 ... to HTC's “Star Trek“ (?!) 02:19 Sona? More Like No-Na 03:12 Saved by a “Bad Robot“ 04:08 Unboxing a 23rd-century communicator 08:05 Prototype blues 10:24 Bluetooth saves the day [SOCIALIZE] [DISCLOSURES] This post may contain affiliate links, which afford Future plc a commission should you make a purchase. This does not affect MrMobile’s editorial content. See Future's disclosure policy for more details: Additional information concerning MrMobile’s ethics policy can be found here: #startrek #nokia #startrekcommunicator #whenphoneswerefun #mrmobile #starfleet #communicator #retro #throwback