Before the advent and proliferation of smartphones in the 2000s, portable phones came in the form of handheld devices such as the Motorola MicroTAC, which belonged to the second-generation (2G) mobile systems supporting data, fax and Short Message Service (SMS) mobile services. Launched in 1989 by Motorola, an American multinational telecommunications company, the MicroTAC was known as the “pocket-size cellular phone” that was recognised as the smallest and lightest phone then. It was known for its signature design, the “mouthpiece” that flipped over the keypad. The Digital Personal Communicator (DPC) was introduced as a cheaper option in the MicroTAC series, which bore a similar look in terms of the flip design, body and keypad. Although this particular edition from the American telephone company Bell Atlantic NYNEX was likely not to have been made available in Singapore, the MicroTAC series still made its way into the Singapore market in the 1990s and remains a telecommunication icon remembered by Singaporeans today.
