WWN Tech: We Get Our Hands On The Nokia 3310

THE internet was aflame this week with the news that the beloved Nokia 3310 was about to make a comeback set for later this year, with a re-launch by Finnish company HMD Oy Global, who bought up the rights to the Nokia brand.

Ahead of the new arrival of an old favourite, WWN Tech made sure we got our hands on a Nokia 3310 before anyone else, by driving to our Mam’s house and digging ours out of the drawer under the telly where all the chargers and old birthday cards are.

First impressions of the handset are favourable, even if we’re not sure this fabled handset can honour its ‘indestructible’ reputation. Our Nokia 3310 has some serious damage; there’s a big chip on the back cover from where we fell off a footpath while texting when we were heading to a rag ball in 2001, absolutely shitfaced. The ‘0’ key only works when you really, really press down on it, and all the other keys are coated in some nameless gack that makes them ‘stick’ a bit when pushed. Not impressed.

Next up is battery life, and to be fair this thing still fired up after been sitting in a drawer for over a decade. It held its own for an hour before flashing that it needed a drink; luckily we were a Nokia house back in the day, so we still have approximately 1,236 Nokia chargers in the drawer, all ready to fill ‘er up. Okay, not bad.

Features wise, the Nokia 3310 has everything that today’s smartphones have, except colour screens, cameras, apps, connection to the internet, touch screen technology, or social media access. But it’s blue!

All told, the 3310 we found in our mam’s house was ok, we suppose. Not sure why everyone is going crazy for the release of a phone that has been bettered by every phone that has come out in the last 16 years. The only reason a person might buy one is to try and make themselves out to be ‘above’ the trappings of technology, while secretly using their iPhone on the side and only bringing out the 3310 in crowds where they want to seem cool. Good job there isn’t too many of those dickheads around, right?