Vintage Cell Phones

[Chip Chester]

So I've kept almost every cell phone I ever had. All but the first one, an Audiovox AMPS phone that was 3 watts in the car kit, and 1 watt when un-docked/on battery. (Battery lasted for about 20 minutes on a good day.)

Aside from the AMPS/NAMPS ones, there's a bevy of Palm Treo units, both flip and non-flip, plus a Motorola Razer(?) or two, a Motorola StarTac flip, the first Android sliding keyboard one, and every other iPhone model starting from 3GS to 6S.

The iPhones all still work, and I could probably have them activated if I needed to. But the older ones, even though some are GSM, I thought were doorstops. What approximate date is 2G? Is there a way to tell if they'll work just by firing them up and observing for signal? (Testing by calling 911 doesn't really seem prudent...)