The Deer Hunters

This is the first episode we see a cell phone. A chunky grey fliptop Rory uses to call Lane from the jeep. An antenna protrudes from it's lower half.

The phone Rory uses to call Lane is:

The Motorola Startac

The first popular "clamshell" phone, the Startac was released 1996. In Gilmore Girls lore, this would have been around the time Rory was celebrating her 12 the birthday with a Huckleberry Finn themed birthday party.

The Startac was massively popular despite its initial price of US$1000.00. By the time of season 1 of Gilmore Girls, prices would have dropped significantly, with some models going for US$150.00 in 1999 according to the LA times. This would make the phone more easily affordable for Lorelai and Rory's single income household. Disclaimer: Gilmore Girls was never interested in accurately depicting what would be affordable for a single income household. Second disclaimer: The US$150 price tag was partly lowered due to technical glitches in the rollout of theStartac 7000. The button layout of Rory's phone looks more like that of the Startac 8500.

The Startac only had 1 megabyte of memory. To put this into perspective, it couldn't hold the images on this page. It also wouldn't be able to hold the script of the average Gilmore Girls episode. However, this would have been a difficult feat for a mobile device in the late 90s considering Amy Sherman-Palladino's rapid-fire writing. The phone had 1kb of flash storage: just enough to save your 100 contacts.

Looking at the Startac's dull grey colour and hardy exterior today, the phone appears to be a symbol of utilitarianism. However, in 2000 it was the perfect fit for the aspirational lifestyle depicted in Gilmore Girls. Lighter, and thinner than any of the phones that preceded it, and more expensive due to these design decisions, the Startac was considered a slightly extravagant device, sacrificing cost for aesthetic. Perfect for our Poptart-eating heroines.