Actually, I never had the Motorola portable (the brick), but I did convert a 3 watt Motorola car phone to briefcase use during the 1980's. Required 8 D-size rechargable cells to operate!

I was also an early user of Bell Sysem IMTS moble phone service, an even its prdecessor, MTS (which required an operator... no dialing). At one time, I had two mobile phones in my car, one on Bell (VHF freq) and one on a private service (UHF freq) in the San Francisco Bay Area.

When I retired, I found much less of a need to always be in contact and I got rid of most of my radio communication devices. I kept one on-demand handset that I only turn on when I'm traveling. I have a couple of digital cameras; tried the early cheap digitals and found them inadequate. Today, I'd get along just fine with phone and camera combined, but since I don't carry my cellphone handset all the time anyway I find it just as convenient to get out the Olympus when I have need to picture something.

I do have one of the later technologies for home phone service. I get connection using the IP facility on my cable provider's internet service. Have used the Ooma hardware for several years and it works fine as long as the internet service stays up . IP phone service is also free after you buy the hardware to connect to your cable modem.