Is it hip to be flip? The flip phone, an icon of the late ’90s and early 2000s, appears to be making a comeback among celebrities, hipsters and millennials.
Next time you ride your fixed-gear bicycleto the the thrift store, where you find a vintage, grease-stained mechanic’s shirt that matches your Rollie Fingers mustache and Grizzly Adams beard, there’s an edgy, if technologically sub-optimal, way to tell your friends about it.
Use a flip phone.
In an age of the iPhone 6 Plus and massive Android phablets, flip phones are inexplicably making a comeback.
No less an arbiter of cool than Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour has apparently dumped her iPhone in favor of a flipper. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, actress Kate Beckinsale and even Rihanna are just a few of the celebrities spotted proudly brandishing the famous piece of paleo-technology.
The hinged, snap-shut “flipper” form factor was originally introduced to the public in 1982 by laptop manufacturer GriD with its Compass computer.
Motorola, perhaps the king of flip phones with its Razr line, introduced the clamshell style in 1996 with its StarTAC phone (which, appropriately enough, was re-released for nostalgic techies in 2010).