What year did you first get a cellphone?

[gonealookin]

2009, when my timing belt broke as I was coming down NV 207.  I was able to coast into a 7-11 parking lot, and the 7-11 somehow had one of the few remaining old-style pay phones.  I realized there really wasn't much choice any more.  That one was just a little granny phone that had a very limited texting capability; I resisted a smart phone until 2015 when it was becoming obvious having one would be necessary going forward in modern society.

[kalvado]

1997, same year as I graduated college and moved into my first house.  Still have the same phone number.  Never saw a need for a land line after college, so didn't get one in the house in order to keep telemarketers from calling, back when you paid for minutes.  Gray candybar Nokia with monochrome screen that I probably dropped 130 times without breaking.  Don't make them like that anymore, but infinitely more useful now.

Back in 2001 Sprint required a landline to get a cell...

[chrisdiaz]

2013. That was when I asked "santa" for a cell phone and got a Galaxy S III for Christmas. I was 12 years old.

[formulanone]

1992.  It was hard-wired into my car.  For a number of reasons, I gave it up after about a year, and then did not get another cell  phone until about 1996.

Back in 2004, I bought a 10-year-old Lexus which still had the car phone attached. As it no longer had a dial tone, but I removed it after a few weeks of ownership.

[Scott5114]

Christmas 2006, after I got my driver license. My mom didn't want me to be without one when driving. The first one she got was a Tracfone, but we had a discussion about the pitfalls of such an arrangement and she returned it and got me a Motorola Razr from Cingular instead.

[zzcarp]

It would be after I graduated college and was working, likely around September 2000. At the engineering/surveying company where I worked, I was assigned to inspect some storm sewer and roadway construction and needed the phone for convenience.

[jlam]

I got my first phone (a Tracfone flip phone) in 2019 at the ripe old age of 11. I got it once I started school sports and I needed an easy method of communicating. My first (and current) smart phone was an iPhone 7S, which I got for Christmas two years later and have kept to this day.

[Rothman]

First one was a Motorola RAZR.  Forget the year.

[Flint1979]

2001 or 2002.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

2005 or 06.

[Road Hog]

I got my first one in 1995 in college. It was a Nokia identical to the one the therapist used in "Twister."

I was way ahead of the curve when I got a BlackBerry in 2005. It was amazing being able to surf the web in the middle of BFE. I got my first iPhone in 2014 and have stuck with them since.

[MikeTheActuary]

1993 or 1994.  I was living in rural Alabama, where there was no local internet service available unless you were a student at a local college, paid for a commercial line, and this was in the day where 10¢/minute for long distance calls was an incredible deal.

Then an ISP set up shop in Montgomery.  Montgomery was a local call to Alltel subscribers, and a cell phone plan was cheaper than statisfying Usenet/IRC addiction over long distance dialup.

The cellular modems of the day left a lot to be desired...but they did work...sorta.

I forget exactly what model I had.  It was a Motorola and came in a portfolio style case.   It wasn't a full-on bag phone.  It was possible to connect an external antenna to improve reception in the car or from one's apartment.

[ZLoth]

Uhhh... 1996 or 1997. It was a Motorola F09HLD8415 flip phone, and the plan I had was 50 minutes peak (7 AM-8 PM) and 200 minutes nights/weekends (8 PM-7 AM and all day Saturdays and Sundays). I was very frugal in using the phone during the daytime.

Addendum: The carrier was Airtouch Cellular before they merged with Vodafone into Vodafone Airtouch and then became Verizon Wireless.

[kphoger]

I was very frugal in using the phone during the daytime.

I met my wife online when we were living 500 miles apart.  My cell phone plan, which my parents were still paying for at the time, had unlimited nights and weekends.  I used to call my new love at around 8:55 PM, and then we'd talk for three hours or whatever.  Same thing the next day.  Same thing the next day.  I thought I was only racking up five minutes' talk time each day.  Imagine my parents' shock when they got that first month's bill!  They stopped paying for my phone after that...  (I'm not even sure I had told them about her yet.)

[kkt]

2013.  My mom was sick and wanted to be able to reach me quickly if I was needed as her medical POA.

[Takumi]

2004. Virgin Mobile prepaid phone. The number is still listed as my Food Lion MVP card almost 20 years later.

[abefroman329]

Then switched a year later to VoiceStream.  Remember them?

Only because my roommate had a phone with them, and service was nonexistent outside major cities (you couldn't even count on service along Interstate corridors like you [mostly] can now).

The first phone I purchased was in 1999.  It was one of the Motorola phones featured in The Matrix, and it didn't work very well, so I returned it.  Then I did a semester abroad in early 2000, saw how convenient it was to have one, and got whatever that Nokia phone was that was ubiquitous in the US around that time, the one with the stubby antenna at the top.  Got it from BellSouth Mobility, which was then Cingular, and finally AT&T Wireless.

I wasn't able to give up having a landline completely until about ten years ago, since I couldn't always get a reliable signal in my apartment (the GSM standard in particular wasn't great inside brick buildings).

[ZLoth]

I wasn't able to give up having a landline completely until about ten years ago, since I couldn't always get a reliable signal in my apartment (the GSM standard in particular wasn't great inside brick buildings).

Thankfully, the mobile phones nowadays include a "WiFi Calling" mode.

[kalvado]

I wasn't able to give up having a landline completely until about ten years ago, since I couldn't always get a reliable signal in my apartment (the GSM standard in particular wasn't great inside brick buildings).

Thankfully, the mobile phones nowadays include a "WiFi Calling" mode.

IF you have a decent internet connection.
Idea is not new, there were different versions of femtocell/picocell  devices which were basically cell stations scaled down to serve a single house. 
And looks like concept is flipping again, with 5G internet access ramping up - I believe it is designed for those who cannot get good internet connection otherwise, via cable or fiber

[Henry]

1992, after I graduated from UCLA.

[SkyPesos]

2017. I was pretty "late" in getting one compared to other people my age.

[Jim]

1998 or 1999 for me, when costs started to get into a more reasonable range for service.  I was just really careful not to use more minutes than I had.  I'm thinking it was a Cellular One.  I know I had it for my 1999 cross country trip, as did the person driving the other car in our group.  Came in handy a few times when we got separated a bit.

[ilpt4u]

2002. Still using that same number...

...but not continuously. Think I gave it up for a few years around 2007 or so, but got it back a year or two later/it was back in the Cingular/ATT pool

[Duke87]

2004, at the beginning of 12th grade. Mostly just so that I could call home when I was ready to be picked up from chess club rather than having to keep asking to use the phone in the main office as I did previously.

Upgraded from a flip phone to Android in 2011.

[DandyDan]

2005, after I finally moved out from my parents place. Discovered it was easier just to use a cell instead of a landline.