Mobile Phones of Doctor Who - BONUS ENTRY!

Hello gang! I've identified all of the mobile phones used in every single episode of Doctor Who! This bonus post looks at a very special entry from s01e01 - but feel free to rummage in the archives.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

The very first episode of New-Who has some lovely zeitgeisty phones. But there was one I MISSED! I'm indebted to James Sutton for pointing out something which was hiding in plain sight.

Yes! That chunk of C4 explosive is controlled by a mobile phone! Here are some crappy close-ups.

I'm going to cheat a little here. I've been sent a higher resolution photo from a props exhibition:

The phone has 3 distinctive features:

• A black d-pad
• Blue buttons on either side of the d-pad, with icons on them
• A "C" button between the answer and hang-up keys

With a bit of detective work, I tracked it down to an obscure model. The Panasonic EB-G450 - released in 1999.

Here's a close-up from Taiwan's Digital Telecom Museum:

This leads us to some interesting questions. The episode is set roughly in 2005. Almost all the phones we see are relevant to their story's timeframe. So where did The Doctor get a late 90s phone from? Is the bomb intended to be remotely detonated via GSM?

Thanks

Huge thanks to Scarecrow Props for alerting me to the hidden phone. You can see their amazing prop builds on YouTube and Instagram

Here's their recreation:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Sutton (@scarecrowprops)

Archives

Enjoyed this post? Here are the other seasons of Doctor Who:

• S01
• S02
• S03
• S04
• Specials
• S05
• S06
• S07
• Day of The Doctor
• S08
• S09
• S10
• Classic Who
• S11
• S12