What were mobile phones like in the past?

My first one was a Motorola, it looked like this-
https://www.picclickimg.com/d/w1600/pict/292162381348_/Original-Motorola-D368-Gsm900-Unlocked-Mobile-Phone.jpg
I think it cost about £40
It was approx 1999 and the sim card was much the same as they are now, you used a voucher to top up with credit. So you had to dial a number and input the long number on the voucher.
Although you could get a monthly contract I think they were expensive.
It was text ready but text messages came about 6 months after I got it.I actually remember my first text. The battery lasted forever too, much better than nowadays.

Yeah, I had a similar phone that did similar things - the voucher top up and the long wait over the phone to add credit, the long-lasting battery etc. However, it was pretty crappy. Because you could only top up using the voucher, most people would try and get plans where text messages were cheap or you could make calls to someone with the same service provider as you, so that the calls were free.

Better phones and plans were in the hundreds to thousands of dollars range; yes, in the 1990s people would pay a thousand bucks for a phone, which was a ridiculous amount of money back then so you knew whoever had one was either really important, or really desperate to look important (or a drug dealer lol). My phone in particular, a Nokia model, had mediocre reception and terrible buttons. Eventually I had to remove the button pad and use a pin or something sharp to do anything on the phone.

Short answer: Big.

My first mobile was an Alcatel on Vodafone circa 1995, The SIM was built in somewhere but you couldn't access it for removal. The phone had to be switched off for charging in a cradle. A big extendable aerial like a cheap plastic straw, No text messages but it had 3 ringtones and storage for 50 contacts.

With hindsight it was a bit shit but at the time it was a half decent phone. You could hammer nails with the thing.

If you want to see what the first cell phones really looked like, watch the movie "Lethal Weapon" Roger and Riggs are driving, Roger (Danny Glover) pulls over, gets out of the car and makes a call on his cell phone (1987) it was a regular land line type phone with a cord in a small case about 15"x12" that you carry over your shoulder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fWmbcDeWMw

This gives you an idea of what they have been like down through the years.

They were mostly a corporate perk/tool for executives in the 80s... They came down in price quickly in the mid-late 90s, becoming something that was mass market by the late 90s...

By the early 2000s they were getting very cheap and the rates had come down so much that older children and teen had their own phones...

Prehistoric mobile phones are huge. As big as a 24oz water bottle. Have long flexible antenna like a rubber straw. My family has the AMPS version (the technology that preceeded today's GSM).

Yes, you pay even when receiving calls. Actually not that expensive though, because at that time most people don't use cellphones as often as today. It was just like, hi, pls call asap okay. Okay. Hangs up. And then you try to find a public phonebooth (plenty of those back then) and call back the caller. It just a more convenient version of pager because you can dial directly, no need to speak to an operator first.