The first handheld mobile phones were introduced in the early 1980s, but it took over a decade before color screens became widely available on cell phones. The early mobile phones had simple black and white displays capable of displaying just text and basic icons. It wasn’t until the late 1990s and early 2000s that color screens started appearing on cell phones, allowing for more advanced graphics, games, photos, and eventually video. The transition was gradual, with various milestones along the way, as display technology, phone processors, and mobile networks evolved to support color. Let’s take a look at some of the key developments that brought color to mobile phones.
The Early Days of Mobile Phones
The first commercially available handheld mobile phone was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, released in 1983. It had a simple monochrome display capable of displaying just 6 text characters. The phone sold for $3,995 at the time, equivalent to over $10,000 today.
Other early mobile phones from companies like Nokia, Ericsson, and NEC also had simple single-line text displays. The resolution and size of the displays improved during the late 1980s and early 1990s, allowing for multiple lines of text, basic icons, and limited graphics. However, the displays remained monochrome with limited grayscale support.
The Move to Digital Displays
In the early 1990s, mobile phones started transitioning from simple liquid crystal displays (LCDs) to more advanced digital displays. LCD technology uses an electric current to manipulate liquid crystals and block light. To make a digital display, a matrix layout of pixels is used, with each pixel addressable to create images and text.
Nokia introduced some of the earliest digital displays on phones like the Nokia 2110, released in 1994. This phone had a monochrome LCD display with 84×48 pixel resolution, capable of displaying multiple lines of text and basic graphics.
Higher resolution black and white displays followed. Phones like the Nokia 8110 released in 1998 offered as much as 4,096 colors on a monochrome display. This allowed for improved grayscale gradients and early simple games and animations. However, the displays were still limited to a monochrome color palette.
Early Color Screen Phones
Some of the earliest color screen phones include:
- Sony CM-H333 – Released in 1998, this phone had a 1.5 inch CSTN color LCD display with 65,536 color support.
- Sanyo SCP-5300 – Released in 1998 in Japan, this phone had a 1.5 inch TFT color LCD display with 4096 colors.
- Motorola Timeport P7389 – A 1999 model sold mostly in Europe, it had a 2.5 inch 65,536 color TFT display.
- Nokia 5510 – Released in 2001, the 5510 featured an 84×48 pixel 4,096 color TFT display.
However, these early color screen phones were expensive, limited in availability, and offered somewhat washed out color quality. At the time, monochrome displays remained dominant on most phone models.
The Rise of TFT Displays
A key development that helped improve color displays on cell phones was the adoption of TFT (thin film transistor) LCD technology. Unlike earlier passive matrix LCDs, TFT uses an active matrix layout with a dedicated transistor controlling each individual pixel on the display.
TFT displays offered benefits like faster refresh rates, better viewing angles, higher resolutions, and improved color reproduction. TFT gradually replaced passive LCD displays in mobile phones during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Some phones that adopted early TFT displays include:
- Nokia 7650 – Released in 2002, first Nokia phone with a TFT display.
- Sony Ericsson T68i – A 2002 model and one of the first camera phones, with a 1.5 inch color TFT display.
- Nokia 6600 – A 2003 model and one of the earliest 3G internet-enabled phones, with a 65,536 color TFT display.
- Motorola V300 – A 2004 flip phone with 65,536 color TFT display.
While not yet at the level of today’s displays, these phones offered much improved color reproduction over earlier LCD models.
The Rise of the Camera Phone
Another development that drove adoption of color displays was the emergence of camera phones in the early 2000s. The earliest integrated digital cameras on phones had low resolutions like 0.1 or 0.3 megapixels, but were still able to capture basic photos and video.
To view multimedia content, color displays became a necessity. Early camera phones with color TFT displays include:
- Sharp J-SH04 – Released in 2000 in Japan, often considered the first integrated camera phone. Had a 0.1 megapixel camera and 256 color TFT display.
- Samsung SCH-V200 – A 2002 phone sold in South Korea with a 0.35 megapixel camera and 65,536 color display.
- Sony Ericsson T68i – Mentioned earlier, one of the first globally available camera phones in 2002.
As camera resolutions and multimedia capabilities improved throughout the 2000s, color displays became standard on phones.
The Rise of Large Displays
Initially, color displays on cell phones tended to be quite small, with 1.5 to 2 inch screen diameters being common. Of course, early phones were also much larger and bulkier overall than modern smartphones.
As phones became smaller and slimmer during the 2000s, screen sizes gradually increased. Smartphones like the Motorola RAZR in 2004 had 2.2 inch color displays. Apple’s first iPhone in 2007 had a 3.5 inch display, setting a new standard at the time.
Display sizes steadily grew over the following years as handset designs evolved, reaching 5 to 6 inches by the early 2010s. Larger displays allowed for easier viewing of photos, videos, and web pages.
The Present Day
By the mid to late 2000s, high resolution color displays had become standard across virtually all cell phone models, enabled by advances in LCD and TFT display technology.
Modern smartphone displays have continued to push the limits with ultra high pixel densities, high dynamic range (HDR), pure black OLED technology, and flexible/foldable designs. DISPLAY RESOLUTION MILESTONES:
| Year | Phone Model | Display Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Nokia 2110 | 84 x 48 pixels |
| 2002 | Sony Ericsson T68i | 101 x 80 pixels |
| 2007 | iPhone (1st gen) | 320 x 480 pixels |
| 2010 | HTC Evo | 480 x 800 pixels |
| 2015 | Samsung Galaxy S6 | 1440 x 2560 pixels |
| 2019 | Sony Xperia 1 | 3840 x 1644 pixels |
While display technology continues to progress, it’s clear that the rapid improvements in color screens during the 1990s and 2000s were pivotal milestones that helped make modern smartphones possible. Those early color displays laid the foundation for enjoying all types of media and apps on pocket-sized devices today.
Conclusion
In summary, while the first commercial cell phones emerged in the early 1980s, they originally had simple, monochrome displays. The move to digital LCD and TFT displays in the 1990s enabled early color screens, but with limited quality and availability. Major milestones included TFT displays becoming mainstream in the early 2000s, camera phones popularizing color screens, and displays gradually increasing in size over the decade. By the late 2000s, high resolution color displays had become a standard feature on all phones. Modern smartphones continue pushing display technology forward, building on those early foundations. While the exact year color phones became available depends on how you define them, the key developments happened over a decade of rapid evolution between the mid 1990s and mid 2000s.
