Throwback Thursday, way back to 2009 when Motorola released the Motocubo A45 Eco.

It was back when phones still had keyboards and everyone it seems was trying to emulate the ultimate business phone formerly known as the Blackberry. Man, that seems like a long time ago.

Let’s take a look at the Motocubo’s specs with a little commentary on what we find.

NETWORK	GSM

This phone worked on 2G my friends.

RELEASED	2009, October
Status	Discontinued

BODY
Dimensions	82 x 61.5 x 16.6 mm (3.23 x 2.42 x 0.65 in)
Weight	110 g (3.88 oz)
Keyboard	QWERTY
SIM	Mini-SIM

An actual QWERTY keyboard you could touch every button on. The size and weight isn’t too bad. Consider the iPhone X weighs in at 174g in comparison.

DISPLAY
Type	TFT, 256K colors
Size	2.5 inches, 19.4 cm² (~38.4% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution	320 x 240 pixels, 4:3 ratio (~160 ppi density)

Small screen, small resolution. Just look at that screen-to-body ratio. Nowadays phone manufacrurers are trying to get that as close to 100% as possible. The Samsung S10 has an 88.3% screen-to-body ratio and a resolution of 1440 x 3040. That’s how much technology has changed in 10 years.

MEMORY
Card slot	microSDHC (dedicated slot), 2 GB included
Phonebook	1500 entries, Photocall
Call records	20 dialed, 20 received, 20 missed calls
Internal	32MB

With a microSDHC slot, it has the potential for memory not too far away from a newer phone, but really, you can have an equivalent amount of memory since the camera has a much smaller resolution and you won’t be downloading so much stuff. Especially not on 2G.

CAMERA
Single	2 MP
Video	15-20fps

What were we taking pictures of with 2 megapixel lenses?

SOUND
Loudspeaker	Yes
3.5mm jack	Yes

COMMUNICATION
Wi-fi	No
Bluetooth	2.0, A2DP
GPS	No
Radio	Stereo FM radio, RDS, recording
USB	microUSB 2.0

Think back to the time when having radio on your phone was a must-have feature. Now we just stream whatever station or podcasts we want to listen to. What’s actually disturbing given the way we live our lives right now is that this phone did not have wi-fi! Can you imagine a life without wi-fi…on a 2G connection?!!

FEATURES
Messaging	SMS, MMS, Email
Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Games	Yes
Java	Yes, MIDP 2.0
Other	MP3/WAV/eAAC+ player MP4/H.263 player Organizer Voice memo/dial Predictive text input

When WAP still only stood for Wireless Aplication Protocol.

BATTERY
Type	Removable Li-Ion 930 mAh battery (BN60)
Stand-by	Up to 350 h
Talk time	Up to 8 h 30 min

Two weeks of stand-by time? Come on, we’d be lucky to get two days from the latest smartphone. That’s one of the best things about older phones that make them greener than the current generation of smartphones.

MISC
Colors	White
SAR	0.55 W/kg (head) 0.98 W/kg (body)
SAR EU	0.36 W/kg (head)
Price	About 100 EUR

Mute the terrible music, but watch this unboxing video because it will give you a real impression of what the Motocubo A45 Eco was really like.

So ten years on, that’s the green mobile phone from Motorola. It’s not a bad phone, it makes call, takes pictures abd the battery lasts for two weeks. The lack of wi-fi might put you off though.