You can take it to the beach

[Dave W]

From 1989. What a bargain!

[OldManC]

"Only" $799? What a bargain, and so handy, too!

[Highlander]

My first was one of those big Panasonic shopping bags as it was a "transportable" and listed at £1200 - I got it on contract for £400 - it worked fine up until the start of the GSM era and it got cloned, so I shut the beastie down - still lives in the loft - the batteries are bigger than a Nokia Communicator (if you remember those) - also had a "kojak" aerial for the van.

[Pilgrim]

My mom had a "bag" phone, about half the size of the one in that ad.  But she felt safer driving in rural areas and having it.  As I recall, with the external antenna, substantial battery and plugged into the car's DC power, it put out a pretty strong signal.

[gweimer]

My first cell phone was the Motorola bag phone.  It fit under the armrest of my car perfectly, and had one of the best signals I've ever had on a cell.

[the mojo hobo]

Those bag phones had something like 3 watts of power. When the phones got smaller and the transmitter got closer to the users head, the power was cut substantially, to less that one watt. For a while there was a very noticeable performance disadvantage, but now there are a lot more towers.

I worked at Radio Shack all through the Nineties.