40 Years of the mobile phone

From its humble beginnings to dominating our lives, Duncan Hopwood looks back on the evolution of the mobile phone

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the first ever mobile phone call.

Martin Cooper, often considered “father” of the mobile phone, didn’t think the product had the potential for a mass audience.

But he couldn’t have been more wrong. From the start of the new millennium mobile phones became an increasing part of everyday life and a multi-billion dollar industry in the process.

Mobile phones have come a long way since the clunky nine-inch bricks of the 1980s, and nowadays using a mobile for actually calling people is very low down on the list of crucial features. Since the iPhone revolution, the smartphone has become our browser, our email inbox, our text message and generic social media machine.

Click here or 'view gallery' above to see our picks for the phones that made the biggest impact to the modern mobile, as we chronicle its evolution from yuppie status symbol to the black touchscreen cuboid we see in everyone’s pocket today.