Phones Through the Ages

The best selling mobile phones of the last 25 years

Remember life before smartphones? When the best mobile phone deals could be found on a range of designs that flipped, slid, twisted and charged you a fortune to get online.

It was much harder (although maybe more fun) to compare mobile phone deals back then, with so many new features and looks being introduced that could so quickly make your model look outdated.

We take a look back at the last 25 years of mobile phone design, seeing which products ruled the roost and which innovations saw them shoot to the top of the market.

Get ready for a lot of mobile nostalgia.

25 years of the best selling mobiles

Compare best-selling models from each year

Compare best-selling mobile phones by year

2020: Apple iPhone 11

vs.

1995: Motorola StarTAC 75+

Apple iPhone 11

iPhone 11 the heaviest best selling phone of the last 25 years

Despite being made out of much lighter materials than some of its predecessors, Apple’s iPhone 11 still weighs a relatively hefty 194g. The iPhone 4S only weighed 140g, meaning an extra 54g of technology has been added since 2011.

The lightest best-seller is the Nokia 105. Released in 2013, this frills-free bar phone only weighed 70g, making it ideal for the pockets of the 200 million people who bought it.

iPhone 11 has longest battery life of any best selling phone

Perhaps unsurprisingly, when you compare phones you find the more modern models have better battery life. Mobile phone batteries are measured in mAh - Milliamps Hour. The bigger the mAh, the better the battery. Apple’s iPhone 11 comes in at 3110 mAh, far outdoing the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S6 (2550 mAh) and the iPhone 4S (1432 mAh).

Older phones, such as the Motorola RAZR V3, could only boast battery power of 680 mAh. However, with fewer apps to run and less energy required to run them, older batteries would often last much longer than their modern equivalents. Think less charging a few times a day and more charging a few times a month.

Batteries might be more powerful now, but they’ve got a lot more work on their hands.

Lightest handset

Nokia 105 (70g)

Released 2013

Thinnest phone

Smasung Galaxy S6 (6.8mm)

Released 2015

Best battery life

Apple iPhone 11 (3110 mAh)

Released 2019

Longest talk time

Samsung Galaxy S III (1300 mins)

Released 2012

The top best-sellers of all time

Ranking all best-selling models from the latest 25 years


#	Phone Model	Year	Units Sold	Battery Life (mAh)	Weight (g)	Cost in 2020
1	Nokia 1100	2003	250,000,000	850	86	207.17
2	Nokia 1100	2005	250,000,000	850	80	241.87
3	Apple iPhone 6 & 6 Plus	2014	224,400,000	1810	129	764.92
4	Nokia 105	2013	220,000,000	800	70	167.35
5	Nokia 3210	1999	160,000,000	1250	151	603.08
6	Nokia 1200	2007	150,000,000	750	77	36.14
7	Nokia 5230	2009	150,000,000	700	115	254.96
8	Samsung E1100	2009	150,000,000	1320	70.2	186.95
9	Nokia 2600	2004	135,000,000	820	94	210.65
10	Nokia 1600 (1650/1661)	2006	130,000,000	680	95	560.33
11	Motorola RAZR V3	2004	130,000,000	680	95	560.33
12	Nokia 3310 (3330)	2000	126,000,000	1000	133	193.05
13	Nokia 1280	2010	100,000,000	800	81.9	610.55
14	Apple iPhone 8 & 8 Plus	2017	86,300,000	1821	148	901.79
15	Apple iPhone 7 & 7 Plus	2016	78,300,000	1960	138	885.52
16	Apple iPhone XR	2018	77,400,000	2942	194	774.36
17	Apple iPhone 11	2019	75,000,000	3110	194	890.94
18	Apple iPhone 5	2012	70,000,000	1440	112	810.16
19	Samsung Galaxy S III	2012	70,000,000	2100	133	443.36
20	Motorola StarTAC 75+	1996	60,000,000	500	112	2,251.51
21	Apple iPhone 4S	2011	60,000,000	1432	140	590.72
22	Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6+	2015	45,000,000	2550	138	746.52
23	Nokia 6120	1998	21,000,000	900	200	1,458.66
24	Nokia 5800 XpressMusic	2008	15,000,000	1320	109	642.34
25	Nokia E71	2008	15,000,000	1500	127	642.34

Apple iPhone 1

Original iPhone and BlackBerry both miss out

While we might think of the iPhone as synonymous with phones nowadays, the original was never a best seller. The first generation, released back in 2007, only sold 6.1 million units, as customers stuck with something tried and tested rather than swapping to something altogether different.

The BlackBerry also never topped the list. Having started out as more of a personal pager than a phone, they never got over the idea of having a full QWERTY keyboard on their models. Despite battling it out with Apple for market dominance, and being the first phone to offer read receipts on BlackBerry Messenger, they never made a bestseller and stopped producing phones at all in 2016.

Two classic phones. One created the world of mobiles as we know it, the other goes down as a good piece of nostalgia.

Nokia 1110 is the best-selling phone of all time

Released in 2005, the Nokia 1110 sold over 250 million models throughout the world, beating the iPhone 6 (222 million) and the Samsung Galaxy S4 (80 million) in the pecking order.

While it might not have had any of the features we look for today in a mobile phone, its simple design and limited accessories clearly appealed to people 20 years ago.

Nokia E71 only keyboard phone to make the best selling list

Despite the battle between BlackBerry, Apple and Android in the early 2000’s, no BlackBerry model ever managed to be a best seller in any given year. The Nokia E71 was the only keyboard phone to ever achieve such a feat, with its full MS Office 2007 package clearly appealing to the 15 million who took it home.

Motorola StarTAC 75+

Motorola StarTAC the most expensive phone in today’s money

When it was released in 1995, Motorola’s StarTAC would set you back a staggering £1,400. That price is even more breathtaking in today’s terms, with the price of inflation meaning you’d have to fork out £2,320 to get your hands on this early flip phone. In comparison, the iPhone 11 would only cost you £890.

The Nokia 1280 is the cheapest model on the list. You’d only need £18 to get your hands on one of these, although it doesn’t flip. Where’s the fun in that?

#	Phone Model	Year	Cost in 2020 (Inflation)
1	Motorola StarTAC	1995	£2,320.26
2	Nokia 6120	1998	£1,458.66
3	Apple iPhone 8 & 8 Plus	1998	£901.79
4	Apple iPhone 11	2019	£890.26
5	Apple iPhone 7 & 7 Plus	2016	£885.52

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We can’t promise they won’t look outdated in 25 years, but they’ll look great for now.

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Methodology

We used Timetoast to analyse the history of mobile phone prices, and used Wikipedia to see which phone sold most units in any given year. All of our data was then gathered in a spreadsheet that allowed us to rank each phone from best to worst in certain categories.