The Nokia 9000 Communicator was the first product in Nokia's Communicator series, announced at CeBIT 1996 and introduced into the market on 15 August 1996.[1] The phone weighed 397 grams (14.0 oz),[2] was powered by an Intel 24 MHz i386CPU,[3] and had 8 MB of memory. The memory was divided between applications (4 MB), program memory (2 MB) and user data (2 MB).[2] The operating system was PEN/GEOS 3.0. The Communicator was one of the earliest smartphones on the market,[4] after the IBM Simon in 1994 and the HP OmniGo 700LX, a DOS-based palmtop PC with integrated cradle for the Nokia 2110 cellular mobile phone, announced in late 1995 and shipped in March 1996.[5]
The Communicator was highly advanced, featuring sending and receiving e-mail and fax via its CSD (Circuit Switched Data)modem, to transmit data over the GSM network at a bitrate of 9.6 kbit/s,[6] printing documents using its IrDA port,[6] and it also had a web browser and business programs.[7] It was formed of a clamshell design that opened up to reveal a monochrome LCD display with a 640 × 200 resolution and a full QWERTY keyboard similar to a PsionPDA.[2] It was priced £1,000 in the UK upon launch (equivalent to £2,400 in 2023). Then-CEO of Nokia, Jorma Ollila, said in 2012 regarding the device: "We were five years ahead."[8]
The Nokia 9210 on the left and 9110 on the right.Nokia 9110 open.Inside of Nokia 9110.
The Nokia 9110 Communicator was the updated model of the Nokia 9000 Communicator in the Communicator series.
Its biggest change from the 9000 was that it weighed much less.
Operating system: GEOS (running on top of ROM-DOS) on the PDA side
Main applications: Fax, short messages, email, Wireless imaging: digital camera connectivity, Smart messaging, TextWeb, Web browser, Serial Terminal, Telnet, Contacts, Notes, Calendar, Calculator, world time clock, Composer.
The product line was discontinued in 2000 with the introduction of Nokia 9210 Communicator which introduced a wide TFT colour internal screen, 32-bit ARM9-based RISC CPU at 52 MHz, 16 MB of internal memory, enhanced web abilities and most importantly saw the operating system change to the Symbian operating system. The 9210i launched in 2002 increased the internal memory to 40 MB, video streaming and flash 5 support for the web browser.
The 9xxx Communicators introduced features which later evolved into smartphones.
