Few of us can forget the Siemens S3, the big and bulky Motorola 8700 or even the early age Nokia phone with its in-built network. They were among the first few mobile phones to enter the Indian market. Back then, a mobile and a cordless could be called first cousins. But few complained. The novelty of being mobile overrode thoughts of aesthetics, size, weight, or for that matter even features of a phone. Just having a cellular phone was a fashion statement and a trend in itself. Back then we were content to carry big, bulky phones with limited features and, let’s not forget, in-built networks. That didn't last too long though.

Slowly, mobile phones were reinvented; the first hurdle to be crossed was size and weight. Enter the Motorola 3688, Nokia 8210 and Nokia 8310. One wouldn't call these mini but they were definitely compact. Their features albeit were still limited and the likes of camera, GPRS and Bluetooth still unheard of then. But these models paved the way for the mini mobile phones; from here on, the mobile phone grew progressively smaller, soon becoming a rage. Almost every mobile manufacturer came up with at least one mini mobile series. Samsung came up with its E-series/X-series (clamshell phones like the E-330, E-530, X-460, X-480, etc) later followed by their mini slider phones, (D-500, D-600).

Panasonic's A100 series was a range of straightforward, no-nonsense handsets without a compromise on style. All the phones in this series were simple, stylish and smaller than an average credit card. Had these models still been around, they would be nowhere close to beating the latest Xun Chi 138 (not available in India), which at 7 cm and 55 gms is the smallest phone in the world. This tiny phone packs in a touchscreen, 1.3 megapixel camera, USB port, MP3 player, 138 MB of onboard memory, WAP and GPRS.