Mobile phone

A cellphone or cellular phone, also known as a mobile phone, is a portable electronic device which behaves as a normal

Terminology

Cellphone terms

; Brick : A large-sized early handheld cellphone, such as the Motorola International 3200, nearly the size of a VHS video cassette, with the keypad and microphone on the narrow side.

Related Topics:
Motorola International 3200 - VHS

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; Candybar : A housing shape that has no hinges and resembles an oblong candybar.

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; Cell phone or cellular telephone : Term used currently in the United States (and in other countries as well during the 1980s) to refer to most cellphones. It technically applies specifically to cellphones which use a cellular network. In developing cellphone technology, American electrical engineers saw the main technical problem as achieving a smooth handoff from one radio antenna to the next. After they gave the name "cell" to the zone covered by each antenna, it was a natural choice for them to apply the term "cellular" to both the technology and the phones that ran on it.

Related Topics:
United States - 1980s - Cellular network

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; Clamshell : A phone that opens up to reveal the keypad, microphone, and earpiece; these are typically more compact than other designs. Often called "flip phones".

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; Handset: The term handset is used by cell-phone manufacturers to refer to a cell phone. The term is used by insiders of the industry, like directors and managers of corporations or like stockholders or stock-market analysts.

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; Handy : Pronounced "Hendi", is a pseudo-anglicism, derived from the term Handy Talkie for a handheld military radio (also known as walkie-talkie), that is used in Austria and Germany for a cellphone (rare alternative spelling: Händi). In German, the word "Handy" is derived from "handgehaltenes (or hand-held) Telefon." Similarly another pseudo-English term Hand phone is used in East and South Asian countries like South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.

Related Topics:
Pseudo-anglicism - Walkie-talkie - Austria - Germany - South Korea - Malaysia - Singapore

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; Cellphone : A term covering cellular phones, satellite phones and any phones giving wide ranging mobility, used in most English-speaking countries except the United States.

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; Mobile : Short form of the above, a term in everyday usage in some English speaking countries such as the UK.

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; Satellite phone : A cellphone which communicates with a satellite rather than a land-based network.

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; Wireless phone : A term that generally refers to a Wi-Fi VoIP phone but is sometimes used by the cellular phone industry to describe cellular phones.

Related Topics:
Wi-Fi - VoIP

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; Ringtone : A song or tune that is played when a cell phone is receiving a call.

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; 3G phone : A cellphone which uses a 3G network, with greater bandwidth allowing faster data downloads and face to face video calling.

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Related systems which are not cellphones

; Cordless Phone (Portable Phone) : Cordless phones are standard telephones with radio handsets. Unlike cellphones, cordless phones use private base stations that are not shared between subscribers. The base station is connected to a land-line.

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; Radio Phone : This is an term which covers radios which could connect into the telephone network. These phones may not be mobile, for example, they may require a mains power supply.

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; Professional Mobile Radio : Professional mobile radio systems are very similar to cellphone systems and attempts have even been made to use TETRA, the international digital PMR standard, to implement public mobile networks, but normally PMR systems are sufficiently separate from the phone network to not really be considered phones but rather radios.

Related Topics:
Professional Mobile Radio - TETRA

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Terms in other languages

Cellphones are known as:

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• celulares (singular form celular) in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking countries as the Spanish word for Cellular. It is also used in Portuguese-speaking Brazil.
• cep telefonu (pocket phone) in Turkey
• dzhiesem (джиесем) (from GSM) in Bulgaria, refers only to GSM cellphones
• Farsími (Official for all cellphone systems), Gemsi (means young sheep, referring to GSM), GSM-sími (For phones using the GSM System), or NMT-sími (For phones using the Nordic Mobile Telephone-system) in Iceland
• fònaichean làimhe (meaning hand phone; singular form fòn làimhe) or fònaichean phoca (meaning pocket phone; singular form fòn phoca) in Scottish Gaelic
• guthán soghluaiste or fón póca in Irish Gaelic
• GSMs in Belgium.
• hand phones or handphones (???) in many Asian countries such as South Korea. In South Korea, it is also called hyudae jeonhwa (?? ??; ????) or hyudaepon (???).
• handyphone in the Philippines by Globe Telecom (used by the main mobile branch of Globe, Globe Handyphone)
• Handys in Germany and Austria
• telefon-hamráh or hamráh (تلفن همراه, literally companion phone) in Iran
• jawwal (mobile) in Saudi Arabia
• Keitai (携帯,portable, short for keitai denwa,携帯電話, portable telephone) in Japan; semantic development is very close to words like mobile
• khelyawi (cellular) in Lebanon
• kinitó (??????), short for kinitó tiléfono (?????? ????????), which means mobile phone in Greece and Cyprus
• komórki (singular form komórka) or telefon komórkowy, meaning cells/cellular phone in Poland
• mahmool (محمول) in Arabic
• matkapuhelimet (literally travel-phones, singular form matkapuhelin) or kännykät (singular form kännykkä, very close in meaning to the German Handy) in Finland; actually trademarked by Nokia in 1987 but fallen into generic use and would probably not be upheld any more if contested in a court of law
• Meu Teu (??????)in Thailand
• mobieltjes in the Netherlands
• mobifon (мобифон), a contraction of mobilen telefon (мобилен телефон) in Bulgaria, which came into usage with the introduction of 1G cellphones. As GSM cellphones became more widely used, some started calling them dzhiesem as to distinguish them from 1G phones. The remaining 1G phones are still refered to as mobifon, while GSM phones are refered to by most as dzhiesem, although it is looked down upon by some.
• mobil in Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia and Sweden
• mobiles in Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, UK
• mobilní telefony (singular form mobilní telefon), or simply mobily (mobil) in Czech Republic
• mobilny telefon (= cellphone), or mobilnik for short. Older names are sotovy telefon (= cell phone) and trubka (= handset) in Russia
• mòbils in Andorra
• mobiltelefon in Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Sweden (sometimes nalle in Sweden, meaning teddy bear translated to English, originally referring to the term yuppie-nalle since until the late 1980s only rich yuppies could afford them and they showed them off in a way that looked as they were carrying a yuppie teddy bear, nowadays only nalle is used representing that people always carry them around and feel insecure if they misplace them, like a child missing their teddy bear)
• mobilus telefonas or mobilus in Lithuania
• /pelefon/ (literally wonder-phone), as derived from the first such operator, or /najad/ (mobile) in Israel
• móviles (móvil) in Spanish and mòbils (mòbil) in Catalan in Spain
• Natel ("Nationales Autotelefon") in Switzerland
• Ponsel (telepon selular, cellular phones), or HP (shortened from Hand Phone, but pronounced ha-pe, not like HP in English) in Indonesia
• poŝtelefonoj ("pocket phones", pronounced poshtelefonoy) by users of Esperanto
• portable (literally portable) in France
• sau kei (hand machine) in Hong Kong*
• shǒu jī (手機 hand machine * Same term for Hong Kong) or xíng dòng dǐan hùa (行動電話 cellphone) in Mainland China and Taiwan
• Telefonino (meaning small phone), or Cellulare (short form for Telefono cellulare) in Italy
• telefon selolari (cellular phone) in formal hebrew. Most of the Israelis say pelephone (??????) like the name of the first mobile company.
• telefon mobil (pl. telefoane mobile), but the short form is more common: mobil (mobile) in Romania
• telemóveis (singular form telemóvel) in Portugal
• telefoonka gacanta (literally "hand's phone") in Somalia
• tumors as a slang term in English