12 Bizarre Phones From The 2000s You May Not Remember

After the turn of the millennium, phones became more than just brick-sized plastic boxes with buttons, a mic, and speakers. Zack Morris's Motorola DynaTac had given way to the smaller and less cumbersome phones of the likes we would see used by Scully and Mulder throughout the '90s, and the new millennium had a bunch of technology on tap to change our lives in fundamental ways our '90s brains could not yet comprehend.

The iPhone and the Android operating system that followed ushered in the era of the smartphone that led to modern phone stores carrying various brands of what is essentially the same thing. The biggest differences between models lie underneath the screen and within the software itself, with the exterior portions of the phones consisting of a glass screen and no more than three buttons. Features of operating systems can vary wildly and capabilities can also be vastly divergent, but the basic structure and form of all modern phones are roughly the same. 

This could not be said of phones in the early part of the millennium when cellular technology had finally come down in price such that mobile phones were no longer accessible only to country club members with BMWs. However, in an effort to be everything to everyone, some companies came up with pretty bizarre ways of packing in style and features. Here are 12 of the bizarre phones from the 2000s you may have forgotten about.

Finnish company Nokia was hugely successful during this time and it produced so many different phones that it gets an outsized representation in this list. The Nokia 7280 was among a number of phones marketed as fashion accessories as much as they were communication devices. This one in particular was targeted toward a specific audience as its design mimics that of a lipstick case. Slightly larger and sharing the rectangular shape of lipstick, the 7280 was also wholly impractical.

Despite the odd packaging, the phone came with a color screen, Bluetooth capability, camera, and internet connectivity, per Mobile Tech Review. It also featured voice command and voice dialing, which is a good thing since it lacked a keypad. All functions of this little weird phone were accomplished with a click wheel and a couple of buttons. It also opened up by pulling on both sides to expose the screen and camera similar to an old spy camera from the films. Although this little device was trendy and clever, it didn't last long for obvious reasons, as people tend to prefer their phones to work well far more than they care about how they look as a fashion accessory.

Though Nokia looms large in the world of weird phones, Motorola was a pioneer of the technology and not immune from coming up with some goofy designs while the younger Bush was in office. A good example of this is the V70 from 2003. By the end of the '90s, the flip phone had become the standard of high-end devices until smartphones supplanted them. Always wanting to differentiate its product and have something to grab attention, all the phone makers tried different ways to get their flip phones to stand out. With Motorola's V70, it turned the flip concept 180 degrees, literally.

The Motorola V70 featured a fairly large round display screen on the upper portion of the phone with an oblong-shaped cover over the keys. Instead of flipping the device open, the covering over the keys would rotate 180 degrees around the screen to leave you with a full-length phone with a speaker now sitting high on top of the phone and with the keypad uncovered. The purpose of this mechanism was merely to be eye-catching and sell phones, as the rest of its features were similar to others of a similar price, which was a relatively high $400, per CNET. More surprisingly, Motorola brought this design back several years later in an ultra-luxury device clad with a stainless-steel outer shell and exposed swivel gears for the absurd retail price of nearly $2,000. As the iPhone had already been released, this one was not long for this world.

German company Siemens has been in existence for more than a century, making a variety of industrial and consumer products including electronics, locomotives, and even an electric car. Siemens also played a hand in the mobile phone market during this period of innovation with a few decent models on the market. In 2003, the company thought it would be a good idea to release a range of stylish phones marketed toward an upscale audience, and that gave us the undeniably odd and terrible Xelibri 6.

Looking at this phone through a modern lens, one has to question whether it was meant as a joke, despite knowing that it was once sold in real stores — high fashion jewelry stores only. Its form factor was circular and it flipped open like a makeup mirror. Indeed, it even had a pair of mirrors once you got it open. This was a clear case of style before function. GSM Arena lists the specifications, but they don't really matter as it could be filled with Play-Doh and be just as useful. The lower mirror sat in such a way that the keys were inexplicably split into rows on either side. It's evident the target market Siemens was going for by making it look like it should be at home in a cosmetic bag. However, despite an obvious attempt to market this towards women, it came off looking more like a birth control dispenser instead. According to YouTuber MrMobile, this line of phones helped end Siemens' foray into the mobile market for good.

Toshiba has long been known for making electronics such as TVs and computers, but this company also got into the mobile phone market for a time when it seemed anyone could make money doing it. Many of its products were relatively normal phones, but in 2008, the G450 arrived on the market. In a market saturated with too many companies making too many products, it is important to stand out and get noticed. Unfortunately for Toshiba, the engineers overlooked the importance of retaining a good user experience.

While the G450 was eye-catching, it was obviously odd-looking. It appeared to be constructed with no right angles and built upon a circular theme. Arranging numbers in a circle is nothing new for the telephone, it just stopped being a necessity when dialing went digital. This left the G450 with two circles of numbers splitting the keys from 1-6 on top and the rest in a circle below. Therefore, any familiar number for which you may have muscle memory of the dialing pattern is thrown out, and users had to put in extra thought to dial a number they may have been using for a decade. There is a reason why they say there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Also, according to CNET, the screen was tiny and it lacked Bluetooth. This was in 2009 when it would be on sale in stores that also offered iPhones and Android devices.

Phone manufacturers in this period adapted phones for a variety of purposes from making a dedicated media device to a fashion accessory. But not too many of them likely considered making a phone meant to serve religious purposes. That is where the C91 Golden Buddha is set apart as the only phone with an aesthetic suitable for the path to enlightenment.

Information on this phone is hard to come by, but Softpedia News says that it came with a 2.0-inch display, MP3 player, 1.3MP camera, and Bluetooth. The most prominent features of this device were the circular shape, gold plating, and prominently displayed Eastern swastika in the middle of the dial. There was a lotus flower on the case and a Golden Buddha statue as the display background. Tech Gadgets India also reported the phone could be bought at the time for just $123, but did not comment on how it fits into observing the Four Noble Truths.

Apple may have debuted the Apple Watch in 2015, but it was far from being the first company to add technology to the tried and tested wristwatch design. Casio is well known for its innovative calculator watch, the fashion accessory of geeks for decades, and Seiko once made a watch with an integrated TV screen. 

Reporting in 2004, Engadget covered this curious device, stating that it came with a CDMA phone with a mini numerical keypad, color LCD, and speakerphone in an interesting wristwatch format. As cameras were fast becoming a standard part of every mobile phone on the market at the time, this offered it as a plug-in accessory as well as a "finger-phone," although no further description of that is offered. To avoid having to constantly talk like a Secret Service agent with a wrist up to your ear, it also came with an infrared wireless earpiece. The bulk of this device made it completely impractical and would instantly brand its users as king of the nerds.