> On April 3rd, 1973, the first handheld mobile telephone call was made by anemployee of which company?> And the answer: Motorola.Photo credit: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES.Using a two and a half pound prototype,Motorola employee Martin Cooper placed a call walking between 53rd and 54thstreets on Sixth Avenue in New York. He called his rival, Joel Engel of BellLaboratories.Before Apple was even an idea in Steve Jobs' head, a clunky Motorola cellularphone made its first mobile call. The prototype, sometimes familiarly referredto as the "shoe" phone for its size and weight, allowed users to call for 35minutes before then requiring a 10-hour charge period. For most of the American public, early cellphone models were too expensive andbulky to be worth the investment. Yet, these models set important precedents forfurther developments in the technology. Motorola spent the ten years followingtheir 1973 release honing the product— attempts to reduce size and increase thelength of outgoing calls led to the commercial release of a slimmer, 16-ouncemobile phone in 1983. However, the price was still too high for many consumers,clocking in at around $3,500 - $4,000. It wasn't until 1999 with the release of the Nokia 3210 that mobile phonesbecame an object of most everyone's fascination (and finally within a pricerange that most could reach). Selling over 150 million units, The Nokia 3210came to the market at the exactly the right time. It was small, relatively lightand it was easily customizable. Although the Nokia 5110, its predecessor, hadintroduced the idea of customizable fascias, the 3210 allowed users to changeboth the front and back of the phone. Nokia advertised the 3210 as "Fun outside.Serious inside." Young adults and teens flocked to the product at the hand ofeffective marketing campaigns, cementing the significance of mobile phones fordecades to come.