It used to be that new world-changing technological advances would happen once every other century or so. Nowadays, something like that happens once every few months. Even if we just look at a single niche such as cellular phones, there have been dozens of industry-altering mobile phones in the last couple of decades.
The speed at which technology advances and new models are rolled out is so great that even in a Top 6 list we’re bound to miss many models that could be considered “industry-defining.” Still, here are (in our humble opinion) the 10 most influential mobile phones of all time.
6 – Nokia Lumia 1020 (2013)
Nokia isn’t a name we encounter often on the mobile market anymore, but Nokia phones used to be market leaders over a decade ago. Nokia Lumia may not have led to the brand revival Nokia had hoped for, as a Nokia phone with a Windows Mobile OS wasn’t what people were looking for at the time. Yet, this doesn’t mean the phone wasn’t hugely influential anyway.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 had a 41MP camera with optical stabilization, Carl Zeiss lens, and Nokia’s excellent PureView technology. This led to a camera and picture quality that was unparalleled at the time and greatly influenced all iOS and Android phones of the coming decade.
5 – Moto G (2013)
2013 saw the release of another hugely influential phone – the Moto G. This was one of the first mobile phones to be both budget-friendly and high-quality. Of course, virtually every model markets itself as having “great value for its price” or something of the sort, but the Moto G was released with the explicit goal of dominating emerging markets.
This meant that the Moto G truly had a very affordable price combined with uncompromised quality. This Motorola best-seller had 720p resolution on a 4.5-inch LCD panel that offered near-OLED or AMOLED color quality, a near-stock version of Android, and impressive performance.
As a result, the Moto G became the top-selling phone in developing markets such as Brazil and Mexico, a mainstay in developed countries such as the US, and influenced dozens of future budget-friendly mobile phones too.
4 – LG G6 (2017)
The 2017 LG G6 isn’t the most impressive phone on this list in most technical aspects, but that didn’t stop it from being hugely influential in other ways – display aspect ratio and bezel reduction.
The LG G6 was the first phone to switch from a 16:9 to 18:9 aspect ratio, coming a little before the Samsung Galaxy S8. This aspect ratio became the norm for many other models after the G6, but that phone did more than just change its proportions.
The LG G6 offered the most significant bezel reduction of any model seen before it. This drastically increased the phone’s usability, as a screen bezel is the border between a device’s display and its outer edge. It’s this change that made modern mobile phones even more useful for all sorts of tasks, from writing emails to playing a 5-reel video slot game with 243 lines in a grid – all thanks to the better screen ratio and reduced bezels first introduced by the LG G6.
3 – T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream (2008)
The G1 was the first mobile phone made to run Android. This alone is more than enough reason to include it on this list. Since the introduction and success of the G1, Android has grown to dominate most of the smartphone market today.
Even just on its own, however, the G1 is a fascinating phone. It was initially intended to have a Blackberry-like design, but with the success of the first iPhone in 2007, plans for the G1 changed. So, the final G1 design was similar to that of the iPhone, albeit with a slightly smaller screen, but the G1 could also slide open to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard too.
The G1 had more physical buttons on the chin of the device than the iPhone too – something many users at the time appreciated. All in all, the G1 was the perfect merger of old and new designs for the 2008 market, which helped propel Android to the world stage.
2 – BlackBerry 850 (1999) and BlackBerry 957 (2000)
There are many young smartphone users today who not only have never used a BlackBerry but who’d find the original BlackBerry design downright archaic. This doesn’t change the fact that the first BlackBerry phone made in 1999 – the BlackBerry 850 – was hugely influential for over a decade – from 1999 to the mid-2010s.
The original BlackBerry 850 was marketed as a two-way pager that supported Microsoft’s “push email.” While it was technically the BlackBerry 957 that became famous as “the first smartphone” in 2000, it’s inarguable that both models changed the landscape of handheld mobile devices forever.
1 – iPhone (2007)
In 2007, Steve Jobs announced the release of the first iPhone. Or, rather, he announced three what initially seemed like three products – a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a new internet communications device. Then he revealed that all three were actually just one product called the iPhone.
Whether you love or hate Apple, the iPhone’s influence is undeniable. Not only did it reshape Apple’s future, but the iPhone also influenced all its competitors going forward by pushing the switch from physical keyboards to touchscreens.
Naturally, these are just a few picks from a vast array of innovative and game-changing phone models that have come out over the past quarter of a century. There are other models such as the Huawei Mate X (aka the first great foldable phone), the iPhone X (the first to remove the Home button and move to Face ID), the original Samsung Galaxy Note (with its unique “phablet” design), and many others.
It’s virtually impossible to make a Top 5, Top 6, or Top 10 list that mentions phone models everyone would agree are “the most influential of all time,” but the six we’ve listed above are certainly deserving even if they’re not the only ones.
