GTE Flipphone

Origin: Belgium/USA, +/-1978

Double click on this picture to enlarge it.
   

At the end of the 1970s, ATEA was part of GTE, an american multinational company. In those days, GTE was looking to build a cheap telephone for the US consumer market.

Mike Taylor, a British designer working on ATEA came to a brilliant but simple idea for a costreduced phone, which became the flip-phone. He got a GTE award for it.

The phone [designed by an ATEA designer of British origin], got manufactured in the US, and sold in big quantities. GTE was used to design and manufacture high quality phones, good, reliable and rather expensive. The flip-phone became the first GTE phone for the consumer market, sold at a cheaper price, but reliability on the long term was not the main issue.

Here a commercial on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9IMAA73buY

The name "flip-phone" was a trademark of GTE until 1993, currently it seems to be used by several other phone vendors, especially for cellular phones.


Last changed on 29/05/11 by  Jan Verhelst