If you ever wanted a phone that felt like it might actually float away if you didn’t hold onto it tightly enough, the Panasonic GD90 is your huckleberry. Released in 1999, it is an exercise in Japanese minimalism that makes even the Nokia 8210 look a bit chunky. At 88g, it’s remarkably light, but the real party trick is the dual-colour screen backlight. You can switch between a cool blue and a soft green, which, let’s be honest, is the peak of customisation for anyone who finds swapping Xpress-on covers a bit too much like hard work. It’s thin, it’s sleek, and it has a certain “high-end hifi” aesthetic that Panasonic brought over from their audio department.
Technically, the GD90 is a very capable dual-band GSM machine. It was one of the first to really nail the “tiny phone” brief without making the buttons so small you need a toothpick to dial. The EFR (Enhanced Full Rate) speech coding means the call quality is surprisingly crisp for such a small unit. It features a built-in speakerphone—a rarity for this size—and a recording function that lets you capture up to 20 seconds of audio. However, the battery life is the inevitable victim of the slim profile; you’ll be lucky to get two days of standby out of it, and if you spend too much time toggling that blue backlight to show off in the pub, you’ll be reaching for the charger before last orders. It doesn’t have the games or the cultural clout of the Finnish giants, but for the discerning user who wants a phone that disappears in a pocket, the GD90 is a bit of a cult classic.