Remember when Toshiba used to make phones? Me neither, at least at first, but after doing some research it came back to me that it did release several memorable cell phones in the early 2000s and even a Windows Phone of all things, exactly ten years ago.
Among the aforementioned memorable cell phones, though, is one that I definitely now remember seeing and being curious about, and it’s the Toshiba G450. The name might not sound too special, but the design of this cell phone sure is.
Welcome to another “episode” of Odd Phone Mondays, where each week we take a look at interesting, unusual or just plain odd phones!
Previous Odd Phone Mondays:
Pretty and curvy
Released in early 2008, the Toshiba G450 has a curvy, futuristic design that makes it look more like a classic Sci-Fi movie prop than a consumer phone. It might not seem overly-impressive at first, but when the screen and its two sets of buttons all light up, it’s quite an appealing phone even today.
Its small dual-tone display has a good retro vibe to it, looking particularly like a stereo system’s display while the phone is playing MP3 files, as while playing MP3s it displays an audio equalizer.
Image credit – NIKO on YouTube (see video below)
It’s also a flashy MP3 player
Speaking of MP3 files, you could fit up to 40 whole songs in this bad boy’s 160 megabytes of storage, maybe, if their bitrate is 128 kbps or lower. This is actually a reasonable amount for a cell phone in 2008.
Of course, Apple‘s iPod Touch, which came out a year earlier started at 8 gigabytes, and even the first-generation iPhone started at 4 gigabytes of storage, but hey. Those didn’t have light-up dual circular button pads.
What else can it do?
Besides looking cool, playing songs and making phone calls, not much else – as it’s a fairly traditional dumb phone for its time. Of course you can write SMS messages with those dual T9 buttons, save your contacts, use it as a clock…
Yep, it’s basically an MP3 player from January of 2008, but with lights and phone capabilities.
Whatever happened to Toshiba phones?
We mentioned earlier that Toshiba obviously used to make phones, and over 10 years ago, we even reviewed some, like the Toshiba TG01. Toshiba also used to make Android tablets back then, but it’s long out of that market also. Around the time when the iPhone first started gaining traction, the Japanese company gave Windows Phone a shot with the Toshiba Windows Phone IS12T, but we all know how that turned out. And it seems that now Toshiba is most focused on laptops and other, larger consumer electronics, instead of the highly competitive smartphone market.
But back to the Toshiba G450 – this pill-shaped MP3 player-slash-phone of early 2008. How do you feel about it after seeing it?
