104-598: The Sony Xperia XA1 is a smartphone produced by Sony . Part of the Xperia X Series , the device was unveiled along with the Sony Xperia XZ Premium , Sony Xperia XZs and Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra at the annual Mobile World Congress in February 2017. It features a 23 megapixel rear camera, an 8 megapixel front-facing camera, headphone jack , 32 GB of on board storage (which can be expanded up to 256 GB via micro SD) and
208-478: A bullet train , saw a bored businessman playing with an LCD calculator by pressing the buttons. Yokoi then thought of an idea for a watch that doubled as a miniature game machine for killing time. Starting in 1980, Nintendo began to release a series of electronic games designed by Yokoi called the Game & Watch games. Taking advantage of the technology used in the credit-card-sized calculators that had appeared on
312-413: A touchscreen was the Game.com released by Tiger Electronics in 1997. The Nintendo DS , released in 2004, introduced touchscreen controls and wireless online gaming to a wider audience, becoming the best-selling handheld console with over 150 million units sold worldwide. This table describes handheld games consoles by generation, with over 1 million sales. No handheld achieved this prior to
416-665: A " keyboard bar " form factor, like the BlackBerry line, Windows Mobile smartphones, Palm Treos , and some of the Nokia Eseries . A few hid their full physical QWERTY keyboard in a sliding form factor , like the Danger Hiptop line. Some even had only a numeric keypad using T9 text input , like the Nokia Nseries and other models in the Nokia Eseries . Resistive touchscreens with stylus -based interfaces could still be found on
520-504: A "devices and services" company. Despite the growth of Windows Phone and the Lumia range (which accounted for nearly 90% of all Windows Phone devices sold), the platform never had significant market share in the key U.S. market, and Microsoft was unable to maintain Windows Phone's momentum in the years that followed, resulting in dwindling interest from users and app developers. After Balmer
624-736: A "smartphone" began as a prototype called "Angler" developed by Canova in 1992 while at IBM and demonstrated in November of that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show. A refined version was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator . In addition to placing and receiving cellular calls , the touchscreen-equipped Simon could send and receive faxes and emails . It included an address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock, and notepad, as well as other visionary mobile applications such as maps, stock reports and news. The IBM Simon
728-431: A 3.5" capacitive touchscreen with twice the common resolution of most smartphone screens at the time , and introduced multi-touch to phones, which allowed gestures such as "pinching" to zoom in or out on photos, maps, and web pages. The iPhone was notable as being the first device of its kind targeted at the mass market to abandon the use of a stylus, keyboard, or keypad typical of contemporary smartphones, instead using
832-821: A 720p display. It runs on Android 7.0 " Nougat " out of the box. Smartphone A smartphone , often simply called a phone , is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing , email , and social media , as well as multimedia playback and streaming . Smartphones have built-in cameras , GPS navigation , and support for various communication methods, including voice calls, text messaging , and internet-based messaging apps. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems , access to
936-548: A USB cable from a PC. The GP32 was redesigned in 2003. A front-lit screen was added and the new version was called GP32 FLU (Front Light Unit). In summer 2004, another redesign, the GP32 BLU, was made, and added a backlit screen. This version of the handheld was planned for release outside South Korea; in Europe, and it was released for example in Spain (VirginPlay was the distributor). While not
1040-594: A backlit screen was released in some regions around the same time. Along with the GameCube , the GBA also introduced the concept of "connectivity": using a handheld system as a console controller. A handful of games use this feature, most notably Animal Crossing , Pac-Man Vs. , Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles , The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures , The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker , Metroid Prime , and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle . As of December 31, 2007,
1144-598: A calculator, using LED (light-emitting diode) technology." The result was the 1976 release of Auto Race . Followed by Football later in 1977, the two games were so successful that according to Katz, "these simple electronic handheld games turned into a '$ 400 million category.'" Mattel would later win the honor of being recognized by the industry for innovation in handheld game device displays. Soon, other manufacturers including Coleco , Parker Brothers , Milton Bradley , Entex , and Bandai began following up with their own tabletop and handheld electronic games. In 1979
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#17330855313391248-586: A commercial success on a level with mainstream handhelds (only 30,000 units were sold), it ended up being used mainly as a platform for user-made applications and emulators of other systems, being popular with developers and more technically adept users. Nokia released the N-Gage in 2003. It was designed as a combination MP3 player, cellphone, PDA, radio, and gaming device. The system received much criticism alleging defects in its physical design and layout, including its vertically oriented screen and requirement of removing
1352-537: A cost-cutting move rather than hard plastic cases that Japanese and European releases were shipped in may have also hurt US sales. The WonderSwan Color is a handheld game console designed by Bandai . It was released on December 9, 2000, in Japan, Although the WonderSwan Color was slightly larger and heavier (7 mm and 2 g) compared to the original WonderSwan, the color version featured 512 KB of RAM and
1456-467: A dearth of compelling games, and Nintendo's aggressive marketing campaign, and despite a redesign in 1991, the Lynx became a commercial failure . Despite this, companies like Telegames helped to keep the system alive long past its commercial relevance, and when new owner Hasbro released the rights to develop for the public domain, independent developers like Songbird have managed to release new commercial games for
1560-439: A dependence on third-party sources providing applications for multiple platforms. The advantages of a design with software powerful enough to support advanced applications and a large capacitive touchscreen affected the development of another smartphone OS platform, Android , with a more BlackBerry-like prototype device scrapped in favor of a touchscreen device with a slide-out physical keyboard, as Google's engineers thought at
1664-503: A dual five-megapixel rear camera setup for spatial imaging, among the earliest mobile phones with more than one rear camera . The 2012 Samsung Galaxy S3 introduced the ability to capture photos using voice commands . Handheld game console A handheld game console , or simply handheld console , is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain
1768-451: A few smartphones, like the Palm Treos , which had dropped their handwriting input after a few early models that were available in versions with Graffiti instead of a keyboard. The late 2000s and early 2010s saw a shift in smartphone interfaces away from devices with physical keyboards and keypads to ones with large finger-operated capacitive touchscreens. The first phone of any kind with
1872-630: A flight simulator, included a "head-to-head" dogfight mode that can only be accessed via TurboLink. However, very few TG-16 games offered co-op play modes especially designed with the TurboExpress in mind. The Bitcorp Gamate is one of the first handheld game systems created in response to the Nintendo Game Boy. It was released in Asia in 1990 and distributed worldwide by 1991. Like the Sega Game Gear, it
1976-456: A laptop computer), as well as a frontlit color display and rechargeable battery. Despite the smaller form factor, the screen remained the same size as that of the original. In 2005, the Game Boy Micro was released. This revision sacrifices screen size and backwards compatibility with previous Game Boys for a dramatic reduction in total size and a brighter backlit screen. A new SP model with
2080-404: A large capacitive touchscreen as the sole means of interaction, and led to the decline of earlier, keyboard- and keypad-focused platforms. Later, navigation keys such as the home , back , menu , task and search buttons have also been increasingly replaced by nonphysical touch keys, then virtual, simulated on-screen navigation keys, commonly with access combinations such as a long press of
2184-519: A large capacitive touchscreen was the LG Prada , announced by LG in December 2006. This was a fashionable feature phone created in collaboration with Italian luxury designer Prada with a 3" 240 x 400 pixel screen, a 2-Megapixel digital camera with 144p video recording ability, an LED flash , and a miniature mirror for self portraits. In January 2007, Apple Computer introduced the iPhone . It had
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#17330855313392288-464: A large touchscreen for direct finger input as its main means of interaction. The iPhone's operating system was also a shift away from older operating systems (which older phones supported and which were adapted from PDAs and feature phones ) to an operative system powerful enough to not require using a limited, stripped down web browser that can only render pages specially formatted using technologies such as WML , cHTML , or XHTML and instead ran
2392-470: A larger color LCD screen. In addition, the WonderSwan Color is compatible with the original WonderSwan library of games. Prior to WonderSwan's release, Nintendo had virtually a monopoly in the Japanese video game handheld market. After the release of the WonderSwan Color, Bandai took approximately 8% of the market share in Japan partly due to its low price of 6800 yen (approximately US$ 65). Another reason for
2496-481: A limited amount of cellular Internet access. PDA and mobile phone manufacturers competed in reducing the size of devices. The bulk of these smartphones combined with their high cost and expensive data plans, plus other drawbacks such as expansion limitations and decreased battery life compared to separate standalone devices, generally limited their popularity to " early adopters " and business users who needed portable connectivity. In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released
2600-534: A lot of power, they were not battery-friendly like the non-backlit original Game Boy whose monochrome graphics allowed longer battery life. By this point, rechargeable battery technology had not yet matured and so the more advanced game consoles of the time such as the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx did not have nearly as much success as the Game Boy. Even though third-party rechargeable batteries were available for
2704-444: A major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors. As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined to sell 118.69 million units worldwide. The console is capable of displaying up to 56 different colors simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768, and can add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for
2808-674: A major leap in innovation, particularly in the second half with the release of the DS and PSP . In 2001, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance (GBA or AGB), which added two shoulder buttons, a larger screen, and more computing power than the Game Boy Color. The design was revised two years later when the Game Boy Advance SP (GBA SP), a more compact version, was released. The SP features a " clamshell " design (folding open and closed, like
2912-752: A major partnership with Microsoft, under which it would exclusively use Windows Phone on all of its future smartphones, and integrate Microsoft's Bing search engine and Bing Maps (which, as part of the partnership, would also license Nokia Maps data) into all future devices. The announcement led to the abandonment of both Symbian, as well as MeeGo —a Linux-based mobile platform it was co-developing with Intel. Nokia's low-end Lumia 520 saw strong demand and helped Windows Phone gain niche popularity in some markets, overtaking BlackBerry in global market share in 2013. In mid-June 2012, Meizu released its mobile operating system, Flyme OS . Many of these attempts to compete with Android and iPhone were short-lived. Over
3016-585: A million units were sold in the US. As of March 31, 2005, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined to sell over 118 million units worldwide. In 1987, Epyx created the Handy Game; a device that would become the Atari Lynx in 1989. It is the first color handheld console ever made, as well as the first with a backlit screen. It also features networking support with up to 17 other players, and advanced hardware that allows
3120-484: A much higher resolution, and can display 64 sprites at once, 16 per scanline, in 512 colors. Although the hardware can only handle 481 simultaneous colors. It has 8 kilobytes of RAM . The Turbo runs the HuC6820 CPU at 1.79 or 7.16 MHz . The optional "TurboVision" TV tuner includes RCA audio/video input, allowing users to use TurboExpress as a video monitor. The "TurboLink" allowed two-player play. Falcon ,
3224-523: A redesigned user interface, support for gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, and a new web browser based on the same WebKit rendering engine used by the iPhone. The following year, RIM released BlackBerry OS 7 and new models in the Bold and Torch ranges, which included a new Bold with a touchscreen alongside its keyboard, and the Torch 9860—the first BlackBerry phone to not include a physical keyboard. In 2013, it replaced
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3328-416: A rotary knob ring around the lens and a tripod mount. While screen sizes have increased, manufacturers have attempted to make smartphones thinner at the expense of utility and sturdiness, since a thinner frame is more vulnerable to bending and has less space for components, namely battery capacity. The iPhone and later touchscreen-only Android devices together popularized the slate form factor , based on
3432-527: A touch screen and stylus. However, Tiger hoped it would also challenge Nintendo's Game Boy and gain a following among younger gamers too. Unlike other handheld game consoles, the first game.com consoles included two slots for game cartridges, which would not happen again until the Tapwave Zodiac, the DS and DS Lite, and could be connected to a 14.4 kbit/s modem. Later models had only a single cartridge slot. The Game Boy Color (also referred to as GBC or CGB)
3536-499: A variety of video displays such as LED , VFD , or LCD . In 1978, handheld electronic games were described by Popular Electronics magazine as "nonvideo electronic games" and "non-TV games" as distinct from devices that required use of a television screen. Handheld electronic games, in turn, find their origins in the synthesis of previous handheld and tabletop electro-mechanical devices such as Waco 's Electronic Tic-Tac-Toe (1972) Cragstan's Periscope-Firing Range (1951), and
3640-579: A variety of wireless communication standards, including LTE , 5G NR , Wi-Fi , Bluetooth , and satellite navigation . By the mid-2020s, manufacturers began integrating satellite messaging and emergency services, expanding their utility in remote areas without reliable cellular coverage . Following the rising popularity of the iPhone in the late 2000s, the majority of smartphones have featured thin, slate-like form factors with large, capacitive touch screens with support for multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards. Most modern smartphones have
3744-571: A version of Apple's Safari browser that could render full websites not specifically designed for mobile phones. Later Apple shipped a software update that gave the iPhone a built-in on-device App Store allowing direct wireless downloads of third-party software. This kind of centralized App Store and free developer tools quickly became the new main paradigm for all smartphone platforms for software development , distribution , discovery, installation , and payment, in place of expensive developer tools that required official approval to use and
3848-519: Is Nintendo's successor to the Game Boy and was released on October 21, 1998, in Japan and in November of the same year in the United States. It features a color screen, and is slightly bigger than the Game Boy Pocket . The processor is twice as fast as a Game Boy's and has twice as much memory. It also had an infrared communications port for wireless linking which did not appear in later versions of
3952-401: Is a redesigned version of the original Game Boy having the same features. It was released in 1996. Notably, this variation is smaller and lighter. It comes in seven different colors; red, yellow, green, black, clear, silver, blue, and pink. It has space for two AAA batteries , which provide approximately 10 hours of game play. The screen was changed to a true black-and-white display, rather than
4056-545: The GP2X , use standard alkaline batteries . Because the mAh rating of alkaline batteries has increased since the 1990s, the power needed for handhelds like the GP2X may be supplied by relatively few batteries. Nintendo released the Game Boy on April 21, 1989 (September 1990 for the UK). The design team headed by Gunpei Yokoi had also been responsible for the Game & Watch system, as well as
4160-487: The J-SH04 , a Sharp J-Phone model sold in Japan in November 2000. It could instantly transmit pictures via cell phone telecommunication . By the mid-2000s, higher-end cell phones commonly had integrated digital cameras. In 2003 camera phones outsold stand-alone digital cameras, and in 2006 they outsold film and digital stand-alone cameras. Five billion camera phones were sold in five years, and by 2007 more than half of
4264-1028: The Japanese market , such as mobile payments and shopping, near-field communication (NFC) allowing mobile wallet functionality to replace smart cards for transit fares, loyalty cards, identity cards, event tickets, coupons, money transfer, etc., downloadable content like musical ringtones , games , and comics , and 1seg mobile television . Phones built by Japanese manufacturers used custom firmware , however, and did not yet feature standardized mobile operating systems designed to cater to third-party application development , so their software and ecosystems were akin to very advanced feature phones . As with other feature phones, additional software and services required partnerships and deals with providers. The degree of integration between phones and carriers, unique phone features, non-standardized platforms, and tailoring to Japanese culture made it difficult for Japanese manufacturers to export their phones, especially when demand
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4368-716: The Master System , which gave Sega the ability to quickly create Game Gear games from its large library of games for the Master System. While never reaching the level of success enjoyed by Nintendo, the Game Gear proved to be a fairly durable competitor, lasting longer than any other Game Boy rivals. While the Game Gear is most frequently seen in black or navy blue, it was also released in a variety of additional colors: red, light blue, yellow, clear, and violet. All of these variations were released in small quantities and frequently only in
4472-561: The Nintendo Entertainment System games Metroid and Kid Icarus . The Game Boy came under scrutiny by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi , saying that the monochrome screen was too small, and the processing power was inadequate. The design team had felt that low initial cost and battery economy were more important concerns, and when compared to the Microvision, the Game Boy was a huge leap forward. Yokoi recognized that
4576-580: The Nokia 9000 Communicator , a digital cellular PDA based on the Nokia 2110 with an integrated system based on the PEN/GEOS 3.0 operating system from Geoworks . The two components were attached by a hinge in what became known as a clamshell design , with the display above and a physical QWERTY keyboard below. The PDA provided e-mail ; calendar, address book, calculator and notebook applications; text-based Web browsing; and could send and receive faxes. When closed,
4680-553: The Nokia N8 , Sony Ericsson Satio , and Samsung M8910 Pixon12 feature phone had 12 MP. The main camera of the 2009 Nokia N86 uniquely features a three-level aperture lens. The Altek Leo, a 14-megapixel smartphone with 3x optical zoom lens and 720p HD video camera was released in late 2010. In 2011, the same year the Nintendo 3DS was released, HTC unveiled the Evo 3D , a 3D phone with
4784-551: The OmniGo 700LX , a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with a Nokia 2110 mobile phone piggybacked onto it and ROM -based software to support it. It had a 640 × 200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to place and receive calls, and to create and receive text messages, emails and faxes. It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows . In August 1996, Nokia released
4888-553: The Pre 3 and HP TouchPad tablet. As part of a proposed divestment of its consumer business to focus on enterprise software, HP abruptly ended development of future webOS devices in August 2011, and sold the rights to webOS to LG Electronics in 2013, for use as a smart TV platform. Research in Motion introduced the vertical-sliding BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry OS 6 in 2010, which featured
4992-479: The installed base of all mobile phones were camera phones. Sales of separate cameras peaked in 2008. Many early smartphones did not have cameras at all, and earlier models that had them had low performance and insufficient image and video quality that could not compete with budget pocket cameras and fulfill user's needs. By the beginning of the 2010s almost all smartphones had an integrated digital camera. The decline in sales of stand-alone cameras accelerated due to
5096-571: The internet , business applications, mobile payments , and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming , radio , and television . Smartphones typically feature metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips, various sensors, and support for multiple wireless communication protocols. These devices leverage sensors such as accelerometers , barometers , gyroscopes , and magnetometers , which can be used by both pre-installed and third-party software to enhance functionality. In addition, smartphones are equipped to support
5200-475: The " Pocket PC " versions of what was later Windows Mobile , and the UIQ interface that was originally designed for pen-based PDAs on Symbian OS devices resulted in some early smartphones having stylus-based interfaces. These allowed for virtual keyboards and handwriting input, thus also allowing easy entry of Asian characters. By the mid-2000s, the majority of smartphones had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Most used
5304-472: The "pea soup" monochromatic display of the original Game Boy. Although, like its predecessor, the Game Boy Pocket has no backlight to allow play in a darkened area, it did notably improve visibility and pixel response-time (mostly eliminating ghosting ). The first model of the Game Boy Pocket did not have an LED to show battery levels, but the feature was added due to public demand. The Game Boy Pocket
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#17330855313395408-495: The 1990s, or lithium-ion batteries used in modern smartphones. The term "smart phone" (in two words) was not coined until a year after the introduction of the Simon, appearing in print as early as 1995, describing AT&T's PhoneWriter Communicator. The term "smartphone" (as one word) was first used by Ericsson in 1997 to describe a new device concept, the GS88 . Beginning in
5512-514: The 2000s, NTT DoCoMo 's i-mode platform, BlackBerry , Nokia 's Symbian platform, and Windows Mobile began to gain market traction, with models often featuring QWERTY keyboards or resistive touchscreen input and emphasizing access to push email and wireless internet . In the early 1990s, IBM engineer Frank Canova realised that chip-and-wireless technology was becoming small enough to use in handheld devices . The first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as
5616-506: The Asian market, possibly as late as 1994. The total number of games released for the system remains unknown. Gamate games were designed for stereo sound, but the console is only equipped with a mono speaker. The Game Gear is the third color handheld console, after the Lynx and the TurboExpress; produced by Sega. Released in Japan in 1990 and in North America and Europe in 1991, it is based on
5720-452: The Asian market. Following Sega's success with the Game Gear, they began development on a successor during the early 1990s, which was intended to feature a touchscreen interface, many years before the Nintendo DS . However, such a technology was very expensive at the time, and the handheld itself was estimated to have cost around $ 289 were it to be released. Sega eventually chose to shelve
5824-528: The GBA, GBA SP, and the Game Boy Micro combined have sold 80.72 million units worldwide. The original GP32 was released in 2001 by the South Korean company Game Park a few months after the launch of the Game Boy Advance. It featured a 32-bit CPU, 133 MHz processor, MP3 and Divx player, and e-book reader. SmartMedia cards were used for storage, and could hold up to 128mb of anything downloaded through
5928-412: The Game Boy needed a killer app —at least one game that would define the console, and persuade customers to buy it. In June 1988, Minoru Arakawa , then-CEO of Nintendo of America saw a demonstration of the game Tetris at a trade show. Nintendo purchased the rights for the game, and packaged it with the Game Boy system as a launch title . It was almost an immediate hit. By the end of the year more than
6032-424: The Game Boy, such as the Game Boy Advance. The Game Boy Color was a response to pressure from game developers for a new system, as they felt that the Game Boy, even in its latest incarnation, the Game Boy Pocket, was insufficient. The resulting product was backward compatible, a first for a handheld console system, and leveraged the large library of games and great installed base of the predecessor system. This became
6136-517: The LCD-based Microvision , designed by Smith Engineering and distributed by Milton-Bradley, became the first handheld game console and the first to use interchangeable game cartridges. The Microvision game Cosmic Hunter (1981) also introduced the concept of a directional pad on handheld gaming devices, and is operated by using the thumb to manipulate the on-screen character in any of four directions. In 1979, Gunpei Yokoi , traveling on
6240-530: The Neo Geo Pocket Color was dropped from both the US and European markets, purportedly due to commercial failure. The system seemed well on its way to being a success in the U.S. It was more successful than any Game Boy competitor since Sega 's Game Gear , but was hurt by several factors, such as SNK's infamous lack of communication with third-party developers, and anticipation of the Game Boy Advance. The decision to ship U.S. games in cardboard boxes in
6344-518: The WonderSwan's success in Japan was the fact that Bandai managed to get a deal with Square to port over the original Famicom Final Fantasy games with improved graphics and controls. However, with the popularity of the Game Boy Advance and the reconciliation between Square and Nintendo, the WonderSwan Color and its successor, the SwanCrystal quickly lost its competitive advantage . The 2000s saw
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#17330855313396448-515: The ability for users to download or purchase additional applications from a centralized app store . They often have support for cloud storage and cloud synchronization, and virtual assistants . Smartphones have largely replaced personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, handheld/palm-sized PCs , portable media players (PMP), point-and-shoot cameras , camcorders , and, to a lesser extent, handheld video game consoles , e-reader devices, pocket calculators , and GPS tracking units . Since
6552-446: The battery-hungry alternatives to the Game Boy, these batteries employed a nickel-cadmium process and had to be completely discharged before being recharged to ensure maximum efficiency; lead-acid batteries could be used with automobile circuit limiters (cigarette lighter plug devices); but the batteries had mediocre portability. The later NiMH batteries, which do not share this requirement for maximum efficiency, were not released until
6656-483: The company announced that it would also exit the hardware market to focus more on software and its enterprise middleware, and began to license the BlackBerry brand and its Android distribution to third-party OEMs such as TCL for future devices. In September 2013, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Nokia's mobile device business for $ 7.1 billion, as part of a strategy under CEO Steve Ballmer for Microsoft to be
6760-431: The console, screen, speakers, and controls in one unit, allowing players to carry them and play them at any time or place. In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld electronic game with the release of Auto Race . Later, several companies—including Coleco and Milton Bradley —made their own single-game, lightweight table-top or handheld electronic game devices. The first commercial successful handheld console
6864-427: The course of the decade, the two platforms became a clear duopoly in smartphone sales and market share, with BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and other operating systems eventually stagnating to little or no measurable market share. In 2015, BlackBerry began to pivot away from its in-house mobile platforms in favor of producing Android devices, focusing on a security-enhanced distribution of the software. The following year,
6968-462: The device could be used as a digital cellular telephone. In June 1999 Qualcomm released the "pdQ Smartphone", a CDMA digital PCS smartphone with an integrated Palm PDA and Internet connectivity. Subsequent landmark devices included: In 1999, Japanese wireless provider NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode , a new mobile internet platform which provided data transmission speeds up to 9.6 kilobits per second, and access web services available through
7072-433: The early 2010s, improved hardware and faster wireless communication have bolstered the growth of the smartphone industry . As of 2014, over a billion smartphones are sold globally every year. In 2019 alone, 1.54 billion smartphone units were shipped worldwide. 75.05 percent of the world population were smartphone users as of 2020. Early smartphones were marketed primarily towards the enterprise market, attempting to bridge
7176-401: The emerging optoelectronic -display-driven calculator market of the early 1970s. This synthesis happened in 1976, when "Mattel began work on a line of calculator-sized sports games that became the world's first handheld electronic games. The project began when Michael Katz, Mattel's new product category marketing director, told the engineers in the electronics group to design a game the size of
7280-456: The fourth generation of game consoles. This list does not include dedicated consoles , such as LCD games and the Tamagotchi . The origins of handheld game consoles are found in handheld and tabletop electronic game devices of the 1970s and early 1980s. These electronic devices are capable of playing only a single game, they fit in the palm of the hand or on a tabletop, and they may make use of
7384-600: The functionality of standalone PDA devices with support for cellular telephony , but were limited by their bulky form, short battery life , slow analog cellular networks, and the immaturity of wireless data services. These issues were eventually resolved with the exponential scaling and miniaturization of MOS transistors down to sub-micron levels ( Moore's law ), the improved lithium-ion battery , faster digital mobile data networks ( Edholm's law ), and more mature software platforms that allowed mobile device ecosystems to develop independently of data providers . In
7488-466: The iPhone; Palm unveiled a new platform known as webOS for its Palm Pre in late-2009 to replace Palm OS , which featured a focus on a task-based "card" metaphor and seamless synchronization and integration between various online services (as opposed to the then-conventional concept of a smartphone needing a PC to serve as a "canonical, authoritative repository" for user data). HP acquired Palm in 2010 and released several other webOS devices, including
7592-534: The idea and instead release the Genesis Nomad , a handheld version of the Genesis , as the successor. The Watara Supervision was released in 1992 in an attempt to compete with the Nintendo Game Boy. The first model was designed very much like a Game Boy, but it is grey in color and has a slightly larger screen. The second model was made with a hinge across the center and can be bent slightly to provide greater comfort for
7696-526: The increasing use of smartphones with rapidly improving camera technology for casual photography, easier image manipulation , and abilities to directly share photos through the use of apps and web-based services. By 2011, cell phones with integrated cameras were selling hundreds of millions per year. In 2015, digital camera sales were 35.395 million units or only less than a third of digital camera sales numbers at their peak and also slightly less than film camera sold number at their peak. Contributing to
7800-477: The late 1990s, years after the Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and original Game Boy had been discontinued. During the time when technologically superior handhelds had strict technical limitations, batteries had a very low mAh rating since batteries with heavy power density were not yet available. Modern game systems such as the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable have rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries with proprietary shapes. Other seventh-generation consoles, such as
7904-533: The legacy BlackBerry OS with a revamped, QNX -based platform known as BlackBerry 10 , with the all-touch BlackBerry Z10 and keyboard-equipped Q10 as launch devices. In 2010, Microsoft unveiled a replacement for Windows Mobile known as Windows Phone , featuring a new touchscreen-centric user interface built around flat design and typography, a home screen with "live tiles" containing feeds of updates from apps, as well as integrated Microsoft Office apps. In February 2011, Nokia announced that it had entered into
8008-535: The main image with a macro focus shot . In 2007 the Nokia N95 was notable as a smartphone that had a 5.0 Megapixel (MP) camera, when most others had cameras with around 3 MP or less than 2 MP. Some specialized feature phones like the LG Viewty , Samsung SGH-G800 , and Sony Ericsson K850i , all released later that year, also had 5.0 MP cameras. By 2010 5.0 MP cameras were common; a few smartphones had 8.0 MP cameras and
8112-487: The market, Yokoi designed the series of LCD-based games to include a digital time display in the corner of the screen. For later, more complicated Game & Watch games, Yokoi invented a cross shaped directional pad or "D-pad" for control of on-screen characters. Yokoi also included his directional pad on the NES controllers, and the cross-shaped thumb controller soon became standard on game console controllers and ubiquitous across
8216-526: The mid-to-late 1990s, many people who had mobile phones carried a separate dedicated PDA device, running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS , Newton OS , Symbian or Windows CE / Pocket PC . These operating systems would later evolve into early mobile operating systems . Most of the "smartphones" in this era were hybrid devices that combined these existing familiar PDA OSes with basic phone hardware. The results were devices that were bulkier than either dedicated mobile phones or PDAs, but allowed
8320-591: The original Game Boy. It can also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colors, for a total of more than four colors. The Neo Geo Pocket Color (or NGPC) was released in 1999 in Japan, and later that year in the United States and Europe. It is a 16-bit color handheld game console designed by SNK , the maker of the Neo Geo home console and arcade machine. It came after SNK's original Neo Geo Pocket monochrome handheld, which debuted in 1998 in Japan. In 2000 following SNK's purchase by Japanese Pachinko manufacturer Aruze,
8424-444: The other, for an early 3D effect . In 1983, Takara Tomy 's Tomytronic 3D simulates 3D by having two LCD panels that were lit by external light through a window on top of the device, making it the first dedicated home video 3D hardware. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the beginnings of the modern-day handheld game console industry, after the demise of the Microvision. As backlit LCD game consoles with color graphics consume
8528-671: The platform such as online shopping. NTT DoCoMo's i-mode used cHTML , a language which restricted some aspects of traditional HTML in favor of increasing data speed for the devices. Limited functionality, small screens and limited bandwidth allowed for phones to use the slower data speeds available. The rise of i-mode helped NTT DoCoMo accumulate an estimated 40 million subscribers by the end of 2001, and ranked first in market capitalization in Japan and second globally. Japanese cell phones increasingly diverged from global standards and trends to offer other forms of advanced services and smartphone-like functionality that were specifically tailored to
8632-518: The rest of the world. Phones that made effective use of any significant data connectivity were still rare outside Japan until the introduction of the Danger Hiptop in 2002, which saw moderate success among U.S. consumers as the T-Mobile Sidekick. Later, in the mid-2000s, business users in the U.S. started to adopt devices based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile , and then BlackBerry smartphones from Research In Motion . American users popularized
8736-412: The rise in popularity of smartphones being used over dedicated cameras for photography, smaller pocket cameras have difficulty producing bokeh in images, but nowadays, some smartphones have dual-lens cameras that reproduce the bokeh effect easily, and can even rearrange the level of bokeh after shooting. This works by capturing multiple images with different focus settings, then combining the background of
8840-555: The standalone handset can when necessary be inserted into a tablet -sized screen unit with integrated supportive battery and used as such. In 2013 and 2014, Samsung experimented with the hybrid combination of compact camera and smartphone, releasing the Galaxy S4 Zoom and K Zoom , each equipped with integrated 10× optical zoom lens and manual parameter settings (including manual exposure and focus) years before these were widely adapted among smartphones. The S4 Zoom additionally has
8944-586: The system every year until 2004's Winter Games . The TurboExpress is a portable version of the TurboGrafx, released in 1990 for $ 249.99. Its Japanese equivalent is the PC Engine GT . It is the most advanced handheld of its time and can play all the TurboGrafx-16 's games (which are on a small, credit-card sized media called HuCards ). It has a 66 mm (2.6 in.) screen, the same as the original Game Boy, but in
9048-542: The task key to simulate a short menu key press, as with home button to search. More recent "bezel-less" types have their screen surface space extended to the unit's front bottom to compensate for the display area lost for simulating the navigation keys. While virtual keys offer more potential customizability, their location may be inconsistent among systems depending on screen rotation and software used. Multiple vendors attempted to update or replace their existing smartphone platforms and devices to better-compete with Android and
9152-467: The term "CrackBerry" in 2006 due to the BlackBerry's addictive nature. In the U.S., the high cost of data plans and relative rarity of devices with Wi-Fi capabilities that could avoid cellular data network usage kept adoption of smartphones mainly to business professionals and " early adopters ." Outside the U.S. and Japan, Nokia was seeing success with its smartphones based on Symbian , originally developed by Psion for their personal organisers, and it
9256-484: The time that a touchscreen could not completely replace a physical keyboard and buttons. Android is based around a modified Linux kernel, again providing more power than mobile operating systems adapted from PDAs and feature phones. The first Android device, the horizontal-sliding HTC Dream , was released in September 2008. In 2012, Asus started experimenting with a convertible docking system named PadFone , where
9360-447: The user. While the system did enjoy a modest degree of success, it never impacted the sales of Nintendo or Sega. The Supervision was redesigned a final time as "The Magnum". Released in limited quantities it was roughly equivalent to the Game Boy Pocket . It was available in three colors: yellow, green and grey. Watara designed many of the games themselves, but did receive some third party support, most notably from Sachen . A TV adapter
9464-593: The video game industry since. When Yokoi began designing Nintendo's first handheld game console, he came up with a device that married the elements of his Game & Watch devices and the Famicom console, including both items' D-pad controller. The result was the Nintendo Game Boy. In 1982, the Bandai LCD Solarpower was the first solar-powered gaming device. Some of its games, such as the horror -themed game Terror House , features two LCD panels , one stacked on
9568-419: The zooming and scaling of sprites. The Lynx can also be turned upside down to accommodate left-handed players. However, all these features came at a very high price point, which drove consumers to seek cheaper alternatives. The Lynx is also very unwieldy, consumes batteries very quickly, and lacked the third-party support enjoyed by its competitors. Due to its high price, short battery life, production shortages,
9672-531: Was Merlin from 1978, which sold more than 5 million units. The first handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges is the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979. Nintendo is credited with popularizing the handheld console concept with the release of the Game Boy in 1989 and continues to dominate the handheld console market. The first internet -enabled handheld console and the first with
9776-536: Was available in both PAL and NTSC formats that could transfer the Supervision's black-and-white palette to 4 colors, similar in some regards to the Super Game Boy from Nintendo. The Hartung Game Master is an obscure handheld released at an unknown point in the early 1990s. Its graphics fidelity was much lower than most of its contemporaries, displaying just 64x64 pixels. It was available in black, white, and purple, and
9880-551: Was frequently rebranded by its distributors, such as Delplay, Videojet and Systema. The exact number of games released is not known, but is likely around 20. The system most frequently turns up in Europe and Australia. By this time, the lack of significant development in Nintendo 's product line began allowing more advanced systems such as the Neo Geo Pocket Color and the WonderSwan Color to be developed. The Nomad
9984-551: Was horizontal in orientation and like the Game Boy, required 4 AA batteries. Unlike many later Game Boy clones, its internal components were professionally assembled (no "glop-top" chips). Unfortunately the system's fatal flaw is its screen. Even by the standards of the day, its screen is rather difficult to use, suffering from similar ghosting problems that were common complaints with the first generation Game Boys. Likely because of this fact sales were quite poor, and Bitcorp closed by 1992. However, new games continued to be published for
10088-401: Was manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric , which integrated features with its own cellular radio technologies. It featured a liquid-crystal display (LCD) and PC Card support. The Simon was commercially unsuccessful, particularly due to its bulky form factor and limited battery life , using NiCad batteries rather than the nickel–metal hydride batteries commonly used in mobile phones in
10192-481: Was not a new software platform and played the same software as the original Game Boy model. The Game.com (pronounced in TV commercials as "game com", not "game dot com", and not capitalized in marketing material) is a handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics in September 1997. It featured many new ideas for handheld consoles and was aimed at an older target audience, sporting PDA-style features and functions such as
10296-551: Was released in October 1995 in North America only. The release was six years into the market span of the Genesis, with an existing library of more than 500 Genesis games. According to former Sega of America research and development head Joe Miller, the Nomad was not intended to be the Game Gear's replacement; he believed that there was little planning from Sega of Japan for the new handheld. Sega
10400-485: Was so high in Japan that the companies did not feel the need to look elsewhere for additional profits. The rise of 3G technology in other markets and non-Japanese phones with powerful standardized smartphone operating systems , app stores , and advanced wireless network capabilities allowed non-Japanese phone manufacturers to finally break in to the Japanese market, gradually adopting Japanese phone features like emojis , mobile payments, NFC, etc. and spreading them to
10504-756: Was succeeded by Satya Nadella (who has placed a larger focus on software and cloud computing) as CEO of Microsoft, it took a $ 7.6 billion write-off on the Nokia assets in July 2015, and laid off nearly the entire Microsoft Mobile unit in May 2016. Prior to the completion of the sale to Microsoft, Nokia released a series of Android-derived smartphones for emerging markets known as Nokia X , which combined an Android-based platform with elements of Windows Phone and Nokia's feature phone platform Asha , using Microsoft and Nokia services rather than Google. The first commercial camera phone
10608-586: Was supporting five different consoles: Saturn , Genesis, Game Gear , Pico , and the Master System , as well as the Sega CD and 32X add-ons. In Japan, the Mega Drive had never been successful and the Saturn was more successful than Sony's PlayStation , so Sega Enterprises CEO Hayao Nakayama decided to focus on the Saturn. By 1999, the Nomad was being sold at less than a third of its original price. The Game Boy Pocket
10712-471: Was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210 , released in Japan in May 1999. It was called a "mobile videophone" at the time, and had a 110,000- pixel front-facing camera . It could send up to two images per second over Japan's Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) cellular network , and store up to 20 JPEG digital images , which could be sent over e-mail . The first mass-market camera phone was
10816-646: Was the most popular smartphone OS in Europe during the middle to late 2000s. Initially, Nokia's Symbian smartphones were focused on business with the Eseries , similar to Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices at the time. From 2002 onwards, Nokia started producing consumer-focused smartphones, popularized by the entertainment-focused Nseries . Until 2010, Symbian was the world's most widely used smartphone operating system. The touchscreen personal digital assistant (PDA)–derived nature of adapted operating systems like Palm OS ,
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