On April 25th, 1989, Motorola released the MicroTAC 9800X cellular phone. Released as a revolutionary follow-up to the DynaTAC "brick phone", the MicroTAC introduced the world's first "flip" design, and established a blueprint for mobile aesthetics that would last for decades. The MicroTAC was marketed as a "Pocket Cellular Telephone" because it was the first telephone small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, weighed only 10.7 ounces, and measured about 9 inches tall when opened. Interestingly, the phone featured a plastic pull-up antenna that was entirely non-functional. Motorola only included it because focus groups at the time didn't believe a cell phone could work without one. Despite its staggering retail price of $2,995, its portability and status-symbol red LED dot-matrix display made it an instant success, eventually paving the way for the even-smaller StarTAC in 1996.
