Nokia 3310 review: No matter how much you think you want it, you don’t want it

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/nokia-3310-review/

by rbanffy • 9 years ago

32 29 9 years ago

Luuseens• 9 years ago

sold for a millennial-gouging £50. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fashion statement—a phone for the beard-grooming, braces-wearing festival set that think tapping out texts on a T9 keyboard is the ultimate irony.

Not sure if this snarky social commentary is required in a phone review.

e12e• 9 years ago

The start of that paragraph is crucial IMNHO - I didn't think 50 quid was that steep - if it wasn't for:

Despite the retro appeal, the Nokia 3310 (buy here) is little more than a Nokia 150 (a basic feature phone that sells for a mere £20) wrapped up in a curved glossy shell and sold for a millennial-gouging £50.

And later:

It's a spectacularly basic phone that's only good as a backup, or as festival/travelling companion where a week of battery life would be useful. Which would be fine were it not for the fact that Nokia is trying to charge £50 for a phone that should really cost less than £30. The Nokia 150 is, bar the camera and physical design, identical and costs £20. There's even the ultra-basic Nokia 105, which costs a mere £8.

50 might not be that much for a festival phone - until you realize that it's competing with a phone that costs 8.

rkuykendall-com• 9 years ago

Damn, why they gotta shit on me for needing braces? :(

DanBC2• 9 years ago

They're not talking about dental braces, but about pants-suspenders - elasticated cords that go over your shoulder to hold your trousers up.

jlebrech• 9 years ago

needs FB, whatsapp and Uber apps along with 4g

pjc50• 9 years ago

The target market is people who will pay more for a phone because it doesn't have those things.

blackoil• 9 years ago

I would want WhatsApp, map and uber, and a browser. That's all I need on move.

BoiledCabbage• 9 years ago

Unless you're talking about a text based browser that can share 1.5MB of memory - it sounds like you're looking for a smartphone.

Whatsapp is probably the only app I could see them adding in.

leemailll• 9 years ago

Reading the review and the only thing lingering in my head is how much a cell phone based on pi zero would cost?

mere 1.4MB is user accessible

So Nokia want to remind us floppy disk is still a thing when the original phone was born?

conception• 9 years ago

I was looking into feature phones but this seems like the worst time to buy as Qualcomm just announced a new chaip-set for feature phones to give them LTE and the like. 2.5G won't be around forever and feature phone or not, EDGE is not how you want to do anything on the internet.

petre2• 9 years ago

Yop, it's dumb to buy a 2G phone today. The industry wants to ditch 3G also and jump directly to LTE because of royalities to Qualcomm for 3G. They can sell LTE chipsets 7$ cheaper.

fsiefken3• 9 years ago

Battery life will suffer significantly with LTE, this is the reason why I use a Pebble instead of an Android smartwatch. Edge works good enough for checking e-mails and the occasional lookup or using SSH through Mosh if allows usb tethering.

alekratz• 9 years ago

It feels like the reviewer wants a smartphone. This is not a smartphone, and it never claims to be. It's just a glossed-up version of the classic Nokia "dumb" phone - which is exactly all some people want/need.

graphitezepp• 9 years ago

Yeah for a lot of this review I felt like my response would be "isn't that the point"? It's obviously not for everyone but the simplicity or lack of features will be a good thing for a certain audience.

jclos• 9 years ago

But for the price they're asking, it would deserve some minor updating. A 2-3 week battery, 3G/4G, support for most commons "chat" apps (Whatsapp, FB messenger). It would play to the phone's strength while keeping its minimalism.

fsiefken3• 9 years ago

Mark Walton overlooks one of the strong points: Week-long battery life and waterproofness to a certain degree, and providing a certain dumbness (for the smartphone addicted) while still providing some form of internet access.

Unfortunately Whatsapp is not on it, unless someone knows a way to hack an s60 version in there https://www.whatsapp.com/nokia/ - assuming it still can connect to the whatsapp network

majewsky• 9 years ago

Mark Walton overlooks one of the strong points

I think his main point is, if you really want such a phone, you can have it for much less, even from the same vendor (with the Nokia 150 that goes for 20 instead of 50 bucks).

fsiefken3• 9 years ago

yes, but the 3310 is waterproof, has a longer battery life and has better camera that can be used to photograph A4s and have a readable resolution. Perfect for hikes or festivals. Would be nice if it can act as a gprs gateway through bluetooth or usb https://www.instagram.com/p/BT676kmBbwFX--VykvNXL0Xv5TgUy7d2...

emptythought• 9 years ago

I still can't believe this doesn't have 3g. The basic phone i had 11 or so years ago did. And yes, it was just a flip phone

votepaunchy• 9 years ago

2G will be around longer than 3G.

detaro• 9 years ago

Really depends on the location.

petre2• 9 years ago

If you mean Africa, yes. In the US/CA 2G is scarce to nonexistent, the 2G infrastructure in the EU is going to Africa and the freed up radio spectrum will most likely be used by LoRa/Sigfox networks.

kwhitefoot2• 9 years ago

Yes. Here in Norway 2G is being kept alive until 2025 because there is so much machine to machine use of it, 3G will be shut down sooner (supposed to be 2020). At least that is what Telenor plans.

TorKlingberg• 9 years ago

The basic point of the article is that if you want a basic feature phone, you can get them for £20 or less while this one costs £50. I suppose the extra £30 could be worth it as a fashion statement for a festival phone. But, the people who are nostalgic about the 3310 must be 30+ by now, and few of them are spending a week in the festival mud. Is it for younger hipsters who want to pretend they are being nostalgic?

kwhitefoot2• 9 years ago

Anyone who wants a 3310 can buy a real one on Ebay for less than twenty quid including postage.

llcoolv• 9 years ago

It is a bit perplexing that neither the review, nor any of the comments are mentioning ruggedness and reliability, which were the reason 3310 became a legend. If it is similarly enduring, the 50£ price tag might not be that stupid after all.

DanBC2• 9 years ago

The ZTE Blade A110, for example, is a full-fledged Android phone and costs £50.

Where can I buy the ZTE Blade A110 for £50?

I've seen it for £69 (Carphone warehouse) or £79 (Argos).

You can even take a punt on devices like the Vodafone Smart First 7, which also runs Android and costs just £20. The Nokia 3310 doesn't even have Wi-Fi.

Nokia 3310 review: No matter how much you think you want it, you don’t want it

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