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. The phone was large and heavy at but powerful at the time. It is powered by an Intel 24 MHz i386CPU and has 8 MB of memory, which is divided between applications, program memory and user data. The operating system is PEN/GEOS 3.0. The Communicator is one of the earliest smartphones on the market, after the IBM Simon in 1994 and the HP OmniGo 700LX, a DOS-based palmtop PC with integrated cradle for the Nokia 2110cellular phone, announced in late 1995 and shipped in March 1996. It was highly advanced, featuring sending and receiving e-mail and fax via its 9.6 kbit/s GSM modem, and it also had a web browser and business programs. The Communicator is formed of a clamshell design that opens up to reveal a monochrome LCD display with a 640x200 resolution and a full QWERTY keyboard similar to a PsionPDA. It was priced £1,000 in the UK upon launch. Then-CEO of Nokia, Jorma Ollila, said in 2012 regarding the device: "We were five years ahead."
9110
The Nokia 9110 Communicator is the updated model of the Nokia 9000 Communicator in the Communicator series. Its biggest change from the 9000 is that it weighs much less.
Memory: 8 MB total, 4 MB Operating System and applications, 2 MB program execution, 2 MB user data storage, MMC card.
Successors
The product line was continued in 2000 by 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.
Awards
The Nokia 9000 Communicator received several awards including:
The Nokia 9000 is used by Val Kilmer when he played Simon Templar in the 1997 remake of The Saint, and by Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock in the action comedy Bad Company. The phone is also mentioned in Bret Easton Ellis' book Glamorama.
