The Mobile Phones of Doctor Who - Series 13 - Flux


Hello gang! I've identified all of the mobile phones used in every single episode of Doctor Who! This blog post goes through Flux - which is one of the best series of Doctor Who. Ever. Let's dive in…

War of the Sontarans

Dan saves the day by videoing the Sontaran dockyards. We only get a few blurry shots of his phone:

Montage of Dan holding his phone.

Camera top left with what looks like a flash underneath it. Probably a bit too boxy to be an iPhone XR - but the camera placement is classic Sony Xperia. Could be any of a dozen models though.

Once, Upon Time

Two phones in this episode!

The Doctor hands Inston-Vee Vinder a phone, saying "Stay in touch. Whenever you need us, press zero. It's a direct line to us."

It's only a fleeting glimpse in The Doctor's hands, enough to see it's a candy-bar form factor with what looks like a screen and buttons:

Doctor holding a Nokia phone. And it seems to be augmented with a gizmo:

Doctor and Vinder with Nokia. Luckily, that end-on shot makes it fairly easy to identify as the... Nokia N73

A Nokia N73 with a distinctive top ower button and grille.

Incidentally, holding down zero on old Symbian phones like that will launch the web browser.

Crashing in to the end of the episode - the Angels have control of the TARDIS! And they snuck in using Yaz's phone. Yaz's iPhone infected with an Angel. That looks to me like the same "Rose Gold" iPhone that Yaz had in the first episode of S11. Yaz holding a phone.

Now, here's a conundrum. Back in Spyfall part deux, Yaz's phone is stomped to death: Phones being stamped on.

Is this a paradox? Did the props continuity team mess up? Or does Yaz just really like that model of phone?

It appears to be this DVD player - thanks Lewis!

Village of the Angels

We don't expect any mobiles in 1960s England, right? So what does The Doctor use to broadcast video of The Division invading the professor's house? Doctor and Nokia phone.

Recognise that? It's the Nokia Prism the Doctor took from Barclay back in The Planet of The Dead. The Doctor with another Nokia phone.

See!

Detail of Nokia Prism and rainbow lanyard.

That's a throwback to 2009! Evidently the Doctor's coat pockets are bigger on the inside 😆

(For the spec nerds - the Prism could record video in QCIF format, which is 176 x 144 pixels. Analogue TV in 1967 was on a 405-line system - which we'd nowadays call 503 × 377. Hence the very fuzzy picture on the display.)

Survivors of the Flux

Kate is back, and kicking arse! Last time we saw her in S09, she had an armoured iPhone 5 - but this time?

OK, it's a flip phone... Kate holding a flip phone, we can see the button pad.

Silver, with a black stripe... Kate holding flip phone.

And then she does this... Kate snapping phone in half.

Nooooooo!

But at least that gives us an internal view:

Shattered remains of a phone.

And a view of the screen:

Phone screen.

So, what is it? There's not much to go on - and there are literally thousands of models of flip phones. So I'm stumped! There are a bunch of flippers it could be - but none of them quite match. It probably isn't the Motorola Pebl nor the Emporia Connect. It's also unlikely to be NEC's N500iS or E540.

So if you recognise that distinctive stripe, or notice anything about the number-pad, please leave a comment!

The Vanquishers

"The name's Stewart... Kate Stewart!" Classic! She's upgraded from her snapped flipper to something distinctly more modern.

Phone with punch hole camera.

OK, a central punch-hole camera doesn't tell us much. There are now dozens of phones with that tech. It's pretty loooooooong:

A long phone held by a woman's hand. The screen is filled with graphs.

But what about the back? With a little enhancing, we get a better view:

Back of phone with distinctive camera array.

That's a fairly distinctive camera array - a block with 3 lenses and a flash. So I reckon it is the Samsung Galaxy S20.

Until next time!

And that's the end of the incredible Flux! What a ride! I'll probably wrap the 2022 specials into a single post at the end of next year. Unless there's a whole episode dedicated to, say, the Nokia 6310i 😁

As ever, if you think I've made a mistake - or if you've spotted a missing phone - drop me a note in the comments.

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