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Chicago, 1928 — 98 years of communications

Every phone in your pocket started here.

Motorola put the radio in the car, the walkie-talkie in a soldier's hand, and the first handheld phone in a New Yorker's palm. Ninety-eight years later, the archive is still on the shelf — and here it is in real photographs.

See the real phones Jump to the timeline
EST. 1928
Photograph of a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X handheld cell phone from 1984, with a British Telecom badge and red LED display
DynaTAC 8000X · the 1984 original CC BY-SA 3.0
1928Year founded
APR 1973First handheld call
794 gThe "brick"
$2.91BLenovo deal, 2014
01 — The timeline

Ninety-eight years, twenty milestones

Filter by era, or just scroll. Six of the cards carry a real photo from the Wikimedia Commons archive.

02 — The lineup

Six phones, six decades, real photographs

Archive photography from Wikimedia Commons with the licence and photographer credited on every card. Hover to bring the colour back.

03 — Ownership eras

Four companies wearing one name

Motorola the handset maker has had four distinct owners since 2011. The brand outlived them all.

1928 – 2011 · Motorola, Inc.Galvin Manufacturing becomes Motorola; the brand grows from car radios into semiconductors, infrastructure and handsets.
Jan 4, 2011 · The splitMotorola separates into Motorola Mobility (MMI) and Motorola Solutions (MSI) — handsets on one side, public safety and enterprise on the other.
May 22, 2012 · GoogleGoogle closes its purchase of Motorola Mobility at $40.00 per share in cash, running it as a separate business.
Oct 30, 2014 · LenovoLenovo completes the acquisition from Google for roughly US$2.91 billion. Motorola stays headquartered in Chicago.
04 — Sources & photo credits

Where all of this came from

Every date, figure and photograph on this page traces back to one of these references.

Motorola Solutions — company timeline1928 founding, 1973 DynaTAC demonstration, Sept 21 1983 FCC approval.
motorolasolutions.com
Motorola Solutions — cell phone developmentHandie-Talkie 1940, the $100M DynaTAC program, the 1973 New York demonstration.
motorolasolutions.com
Reuters — timeline: Motorola to Google bolt-on1928 Galvin Manufacturing, 1930 Motorola name, 1989 MicroTAC, 1996 StarTAC, 2004 RAZR.
reuters.com
CRN — 20 moments in Motorola history1947 renaming to Motorola Inc., 1983 FCC approval, RAZR launch figures and the Motorola Q.
crn.com
Google — acquisition closeMay 22, 2012 close at $40.00 per share.
googlepress.blogspot.com
Lenovo — acquisition completionOctober 30, 2014 close, ~US$2.91 billion purchase price.
news.lenovo.com
Wikimedia Commons — photo archiveCC0, CC BY 2.0 and CC BY-SA 3.0 photographs of the DynaTAC 8000X, MicroTAC 650e, first-generation StarTAC, RAZR V3, Milestone and the 2020 razr, each linked below.
commons.wikimedia.org
Wikipedia — list of Motorola Mobility productsModel-by-model release years, platforms and form factors, 1983 → 2025.
en.wikipedia.org