Android Authority's big book of (almost) every smartphone first!

October 03, 2022

In the last year or so OEMs have noticeably changed their behavior, aiming for new features over polish, and generating excitement by being the first to do something. The last year in particular has seen some pushes in various technologies and we even saw our first in-display selfie camera before the end of 2020.

With this new emphasis on being first to market with a product, we thought it would be fun to take a look a bunch of other smartphone firsts. For the purposes of this list, we’re drawing a distinction between mobile and smartphone devices here. Mobile devices include non-phone devices like PDAs, and many PDAs were doing things like browsing the web long before smartphones. We wanted to focus entirely on smartphones, without anything else getting in the way.

Here are a whole bunch of smartphone hardware firsts — maybe we’ll do a software version in the future.

What is a first?

One of the biggest challenges with this list was deciding what constituted as a first. Some believe an announcement is enough, while others believe a device has to hit the market to get the title. The rule we went with is announced phones get first, but only if they eventually made it to consumer market. Prototype phones, concept phones, and phones not available to the public do not count.

What makes it even more difficult is that many specific release dates and announcement dates don’t exist for older devices. For instance, the Samsung D720 (not to be confused with the SPH-D720, or the Nexus S 4G) launched sometime in 2005. Some sources say it launched in Q1 2005 and some say July 2005. We tried to be as exact as we could, but the lack of Internet record keeping in the early 2000’s made it tougher for older devices. If you spot an error, leave a comment with a source link and we’ll fix it.

The IBM Simon was the first smartphone ever. It even had a touch screen!

Early Firsts

The early firsts are the big announcements like the first smartphone, the first phone to browse the web, or the first modern smartphone. These are the landmark releases that helped define the generation.

The idea of the smartphone (1926-1968): The story goes that Nikola Tesla described the basic idea of the modern smartphone all the way back in 1926. In 1968, Theodore Paraskevakos began developing methods to transmit data through telephone lines. He demonstrated such a device in 1971 while working at Boeing.

First smartphone (1994): The first smartphone prototype was the Angler by Frank Canova. It became the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, which officially launched in 1994. The device made phone calls as well as sent and received faxes, emails, and pages. It cost $899 ($1,435 when adjusted for inflation). It had a touchscreen and a stylus, making it the first smartphone with those features as well.

The first modern smartphone (2007): This is a tough one because some believe the modern smartphone era started at different times. Most credit the original iPhone back in 2007 with catapulting smartphones into the modern era and we believe that to be accurate. However, we’ll still give honorable mentions to Blackberry along with the HTC Touch.

The Nexus S was the first smartphone with NFC.

Wi-Fi, mobile data, and connectivity firsts

Connectivity firsts dominated the early days of the smartphone. Most of this innovation took place before the first iPhone. Unfortunately, due to poor record keeping and a lack of interest in the smartphone field at the time, we don’t know lot of exact dates anymore. This information was surprisingly difficult to find. If we made any mistakes, please leave a comment with a source and let us know so we can fix it!

The Moto Z3 with its 5G mod is the only phone out with 5G capabilities right now.

4G (2008-2010): The first 4G smartphone was the HTC Max 4G, which launched exclusively in Russia on the Yota network in 2008. Two years later, the HTC EVO 4G launched on Sprint as the first 4G smartphone in the U.S. Both phones used WiMAX 4G technology. The first 4G LTE device was the Samsung Galaxy Indulge on the MetroPCS network.

5G (2018-2019): 5G is an interesting case. The Moto Z3 has a Moto Mod with 5G and so technically, it’s the first phone with 5G compatibility. However, it requires a dongle and it doesn’t have native support. The first phone officially announced (the keyword here is announced) with native 5G support is the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G in February 2019.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 was the first with Bluetooth 5.0, kind of.

Bluetooth connectivity

Bluetooth (2000-2002): The first phone with Bluetooth was the Sony Ericsson T36. We believe either the Audiovox Thera (Toshiba 2032) or Nokia 7650 are the first smartphone with Bluetooth. Both phones launched in 2002, but the Nokia 7650 launched in Q1, so we’re leaning more towards that.

Bluetooth 2.0 (2005): Bluetooth 2.0 officially launched in 2004. In Q1 of 2005, Samsung launched the D720 and the i750, both smartphones with Bluetooth 2.0. This is the earliest reference to Bluetooth 2.0 in a smartphone we could find. The Sony Ericsson P990 was the only other smartphone in 2005 with Bluetooth 2.0, so it was one of those three.

Bluetooth 4.0 (2011): The first smartphone with Bluetooth 4.0 support was the iPhone 4S in 2011.

Bluetooth 5.0 (2017): Samsung earned points for the first Bluetooth 5.0 smartphone with the Samsung Galaxy S8 in 2017. However, some problems prevented actually using many Bluetooth 5.0 technologies.

An old photo of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active

Wi-Fi connectivity

Wi-Fi and 802.11b (2004): This one is a little difficult to pin down as well. We believe the first phone certified with Wi-Fi (802.11b) was the HP iPAQ h6315. However, the Nokia 9500 Communicator, BenQ P50, and the Motorola MPx all had Q1 2004 announcement dates, and all them had a Wi-Fi connection too.

802.11ad (2017): Asus had the first phone with 802.11ad support with the ASUS Zenfone 4. It’s also the first device to support WiGig technology.

Wi-Fi 6 (2019): The first phone in the world with Wi-Fi 6 support is the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus, announced in February 2019. This is also the first Wi-Fi standard without the boring 802.11 name tag.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 was the first phone with dual GPS

NFC (2006-2010): The first mobile phone with NFC was the Nokia 6131 in 2006, but the 2010 Nokia C7-00 was the first smartphone with it. The Nexus S swiftly followed two months later, and the Samsung Galaxy S II hit in early 2011.

GPS (1999-2003): The first mobile phone with GPS was the Benefon Esc in 1999. As per the norm, pinning down the first smartphone with the feature was difficult. However, the Motorola A925 and A920 were both launched in 2003 with GPS. That’s the earliest we could find.

eSIM (2017): The Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL were the first devices with eSIM technology. This is the latest in SIM tech currently.

USB-C (2015): The first USB-C smartphone was reportedly these three devices LeEco (formerly LeTV). However, the tech was available on a Chromebook, a tablet, and a MacBook before it showed up on smartphones.

3.5mm removal (2012): The first OEM to remove the headphone jack from a smartphone was Oppo with the Oppo Finder back in July of 2012. Apple wouldn’t popularize the headphone jack removal for another four years with the 2016 release of the iPhone 7.

The LG Otpimus 2X had the first “true” dual-core processor.

Specs

Innovation in specs landscape is slowing down a little bit. Processors these days have minor improvements instead of major changes and we’re on a rather calm pace compared to years ago. Thankfully, this information is a little more readily available than the previous category since a lot of the spec races took place after 2010 when mobile phone blogs actually existed and started documenting this stuff with more regularity.

The iPhone 5S (pictured with the Galaxy S5) was the first with a 64-bit processor.

Chipsets

Single core processor (1994): Almost all smartphones ran single core processors before dual-core processors came out. This one is kind of easy to guess, just look at the first smartphone.

Dual core processor (2004-2011): This one is actually really interesting. The Guinness Book of World Records says the LG Optimus 2X was the first smartphone with a true dual core processor. However, the Motorola A925 launched in 2003 with a TI OMAP 1510 with what Texas Instruments called a dual core processor. It really depends on how fast and loose you want to be in defining a dual-core processor, and whether or not marketing materials are taken into consideration.

Six core processor (2014): Exactly eight smartphones launched in 2014 with a six-core processor. The first among them was the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo in February. Interestingly, six-core devices came after eight-core devices.

Eight core processor (2013): Roughly six or so devices launched in 2013 with an eight core processor. The Samsung Galaxy S4 launched in April, making it the first consumer level device we could find with an eight core processor. However, there is some debate here. The Galaxy S4 used the big.LITTLE architecture with four fast cores and four power efficient cores, which made it the first heterogeneous octa core CPU. The first smartphone to use all eight cores evenly (a homogeneous octa core CPU) was reportedly the UMI X2S in China. Both phones launched in 2013, but the big.LITTLE architecture eventually became the norm and are what most smartphones use today.

The Asus Zenfone AR was the first with a ridiculous 8GB of RAM.

RAM

DDR3 RAM(2013): We couldn’t find a lot about DDR3 RAM. However, Samsung was among the first manufacturers to produce it and the Samsung Galaxy S4 was the earliest phone with confirmed DDR3 memory we could find.

DDR4 RAM (2015): The first phone with DDR4 RAM was the LG G Flex 2 back in 2015.

1GB RAM (2011): It was widely reported the Motorola Atrix 4G was the first smartphone with 1GB of RAM.

4GB RAM (2015): Asus announced the Zenfone 2 at CES in 2015, it launched a few months later. It was the first with 4GB of RAM.

Smartisan The Smartisan R1, a China-only phone, has a 1TB storage option.

256GB (2015): It wasn’t quite the accomplishment of 128GB or the 512GB storage sizes, but the first 256GB smartphone was a special edition of the Asus Zenfone 2. Technically, it used some marketing tomfoolery to reach that number, but we have Bluetooth dongles and 5G attachments on this list, so we’ll count it here too.

512GB (2018): This one was pretty easy to find. Huawei drew first blood with 512GB of storage on its Mate RS Porsche Design device. Even today, 512GB isn’t a super popular option and we don’t see it on a ton of smartphones.

1TB (2018): Samsung drew a lot of attention by announcing the Galaxy S10 would have a 1TB storage option. However, the first phone with it is the Smartisan R1, which launched in late 2018 in China. This is, to our knowledge, the highest available storage on a smartphone right now.

The Royole FlexPai is the world’s first commercially available phone with a bendable display.

Display

Display technology had a lot of its innovations more recently than others and a lot more quickly. We lived in a pre-HD era until the end of 2011, and almost all of the big stuff in display technology happened after that. We went from 720p HD to 2160p 4k in literally four years. Stuff happens fast in display tech.

Screen type and materials

AMOLED (2008): Believe it or not, Samsung was not the first manufacturer to use AMOLED displays. The Nokia N85 in 2008 beat Samsung’s first AMOLED phone by a few months.

Foldable displays (2018-2020): This relatively new piece of technology and there aren’t a ton of these on the market yet. The Royale with the FlexPai was the first smartphone in the wild with a foldable plastic display in 2018. Samsung struck back with the first foldable glass display with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip in February 2020.

Curved displays (waterfall style) (2014): The first smartphone with a mostly flat surface that “waterfalls” down the sides of the device was the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge in 2014. It eventually expanded to both sides in a later Note iteration and then Xiaomi completed the effect with the first four-sided waterfall display in February 2021.

3D display (2011): The 3D experiment was short-lived on smartphones and really only includes two phones, the LG Optimus 3D and the HTC EVO 3D. Both phones were announced in early 2011 and launched in mid-2011. However, the Optimus 3D was technically announced first by a few weeks while the EVO 3D launched about a month sooner. The first non-smartphone phone with 3D was the Sharp Mova SH251 iS in 2002.

Capacitive touch display (2006-2007): The first capacitive touch phone was the LG Prada in 2006. It was quickly followed by the first iPhone in 2007. Technically, the LG Prada isn’t a smartphone, it’s a feature phone, so the iPhone takes the cake for the first smartphone with it. However, since they launched within months of each other, we decided to list both.

Gorilla Glass 6 (2018): The Oppo R17 and Oppo F9 both featured it before any other phone and were announced and released at around the same time.

The LG G6 brought Dolby Vision HDR to the mix upon its release.

Screen resolutions and refresh rates

720p (HD) (2011): HD displays hit the industry like a wrecking ball, with ten devices getting the feature between November 2011 and January 2012. The HTC Rezound made it market first on Nov. 14, 2011, three days before the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Nov. 17, 2011. However, Samsung beat out HTC by announcing it a month sooner.

Dolby Vision HDR (2017): This one is easy, the LG G6 was the first to support DOLBY Vision HDR in 2017.

The LG G6 also sported the world’s first 18:9 aspect ratio display.

Screen shapes and sizes

18:9 aspect ratio (2017): This relatively newer screen shape usurped the standard 16:9 display in 2017 with the release of the LG G6. This one is special because it was the first to truly deviate from the standard 16:9. From there, OEMs have played with many other aspect ratios, including 19:9 and 19.5:9.

6-inch display (2012-2013): Huawei followed the phablet craze of the early 2010’s with the Ascend Mate, announced in late 2012 and launched in early 2013.

7-inch display (2014): Seven-inch phones are kind of a rarity because 7-inches is around the point where phones become tablets. However, the Samsung Galaxy W sported a display that big back in 2014 and we’re relatively certain it was the first one.

Dual screen smartphone (2010) – The Samsung Continuum holds this first as far as we could tell. It launched in 2010 on Verizon exclusively with a secondary ticker screen below the main screen. Samsung marketed it as a dual AMOLED screen. Consequently, it was also the first with a ticker display, a title often given to the LG V10. It’s an easy mistake to make.

The LG V40 had five total cameras before anyone else.

Camera

The smartphone camera has basically killed the point-and-shoot camera industry, and it arguably is moving faster in terms of computational photography than any other type of camera. There were quite a few steps between the first one and now, so let’s take a look.

The Samsung Galaxy A9 has the first four-camera setup.

Punch hole camera (2019): This one is an example of how cutthroat the phone industry can be. Samsung announced the existence of punch hole displays in late 2018 and its plans to put them in 2019’s devices. Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor, announced the Honor View 20 in January 2019, less than a month ahead of the mid-February announcement of the S10-series phones from Samsung. However, it only took Samsung a month to ship the phone (March 2019) versus the six months it took Honor (June 2019). We’re giving it to both, even if Honor probably rushed the announcement just for the press.

Dual camera sensors (and first 3D camera) (2011): This one is pretty cut and dry. The LG Optimus 3D was the first smartphone with a dual camera sensor setup. This was also the first instance of a 3D camera on a smartphone. The Samsung SCH-B710 had a 3D camera back in 2007, but it never launched to the public and we’re not altogether sure it was even a smartphone.

Triple camera sensors with 3 different focal lengths (2018) – The LG V40, for all of its issues, was the first smartphone that had a telephoto, wide-angle, and regular camera lens all on the same phone.

The HTC One M8 was far ahead of its time with a depth sensor camera.

Camera extras

Depth sensor (2014): The HTC One M8 was most likely the first phone with a depth sensor camera. One of its hallmark features was adding a bokeh effect, a feature that was widely considered a gimmick in 2014. It is now one of the most popular and debated features on modern smartphone cameras.

Flash (2003): The first smartphone with a flash was most likely the Sendo X in 2003. It used an LED flash.

OIS (2012-2016): There are actually two phones for this one. The first phone to feature this on any camera on its body was the Nokia Lumia 920 in 2012. However, the HTC 10 was the first to include the feature on both the front and back camera.

The Honor View 20 is rocking it with its 48MP camera.

Megapixels

5MP camera (2007): It wasn’t the first phone ever with a 5MP camera, but the Nokia N95 was definitely the first smartphone with at least 5MP.

15MP-41MP (2012): Nokia essentially stomped the bell curve with the Nokia 808 PureView device in 2012. With its 41MP (38MP effective) camera, it was the first camera with more than 15MP, and its record held for years. The Vivo V5 has the distinction of having the first 20MP camera, though.

64MP (2019): This one is kind of tricky. Both the Realme XT and the Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 8 Pro were announced with 64MP sensors in August 2019. Realme XT beat the Redmi Note 8 Pro to the announcement by a few days, but Xiaomi beat Redmi to market by almost three weeks. We’ll give it to both.

The LG Optimus 2X also had the first 1080p video camera.

Video recording

720p video recording (2009): According to this press release, the Samsung OMNIA (HD) was the first smartphone with 720p recording capabilities.

1080p video recording (2010): A year after 720p recording became a thing, the LG Optimus 2X became not only the first smartphone with a true dual-core processor, but also 1080p video recording.

4k video recording (2013): The Acer Liquid S2 was the first device with a 4k video-capable camera. It managed to sneak in front of about a dozen other devices that would have the feature by year’s end.

6k video recording (2019): This one is fairly entertaining. According to what we could find, the Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX was reportedly the first mobile phone camera sensor to support 6k recording. The Xiaomi Mi Note 10 ended up with the sensor first in December 2019, which should make it the first 6k recording phone on the market.

8k video recording (2020): This one is kind of a twofer. ZTE launched the Nubia Red Magic 3 in May of 2019 and it was the first on record with 8k recording. However, it was only at 15fps. Unfortunately, 15fps video is barely usable and thus we think it was just for bragging rights. Qualcomm snuck 8k recording in as a native feature of its Snapdragon 865 chipset. The Galaxy S20 series (the S20, S20 Plus, and S20 Ultra) debuted the chip on the same day, making them the first three phones capable of 8k recording with at least 30fps. This is the peak of the technology at the time of this writing.

The iPhone 7 Plus (pictured with the Galaxy S8) had the first Portrait Mode.

Portrait Mode (2016): Portrait Mode is a big deal these days and you can thank the iPhone 7 Plus for that. Similar features have existed for years (see the HTC One M8 above), but Apple was the first to put it all in a smartphone and specifically call it Portrait Mode.

First slow motion (2012): We believe the 2012 Samsung Galaxy Camera was the first smartphone camera with slow motion at 120fps at a resolution of 768 x 512. Sony would wreck that in 2017 with the Sony Xperia XZ smartphone with 960fps slow motion.

The Vivo Nex had the first in-display fingerprint sensor in 2018.

Miscellany

These are hardware features that don’t fit into any of the above categories. Here you’ll find security stuff like the fingerprint sensor, the infrared sensors controlling your TV, and other such things. These features come and go. Some of them are rather interesting.

In-display fingerprint sensor (2018): It took over 10 years, but fingerprint sensors went under the display for the first time with the Vivo X20 Plus UD in early 2018. The Vivo Nex is also a part of that conversation. Both phones were more or less announced at CES 2018, but the X20 Plus made it to market first.

Wireless (inductive) charging (2010-2012): This wasn’t as cut and dry as we thought. The first phone with inductive charging with the Qi standard was the Lumia 920 in 2012. However, Palm had the Touchstone, which worked with devices as far back as the Palm Pre Plus in 2010.

First phone with a stylus (1994): We return to our roots with the IBM Simon in 1994. It came with a stylus and you had to use it if you wanted to do anything on its screen.

QWERTY Keyboard (hardware) (1996): The original Nokia Communicator 9000 had a QWERTY keyboard all the way back in 1996.

Thank you for reading! Try these out too!

If we missed any great smartphone firsts, or if we got something wrong, tell us in the comments (with source links if possible). It’s been an exciting first 25 years in the smartphone industry. Here’s to 25 more!

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