In this day and age of high technology, there is still a great deal of affection for the retro. This explains why Nintendo is selling out with its SNES Classic Edition throwback console. That is why some smartphone users are very interested in the resurgent nokia 3310 cellphone that was brought back by Hmd Global earlier this year. The retro mobile device has been a bestseller in Europe and other markets but is not available stateside. The reason is that the 3310 is a 2G phone when most of the US has since gone up to 3G. But fear not, a 3G variant of the 3310 is coming, and it will be available for American consumers as well.
Reconfigured for the US
Introduced last September by HMD Global, the Finnish startup that has bought the license for Nokia’s line of cellphones, the 3G-enabled 3310 looks set to come to the US at the end of this month. That is some major nostalgia-driven good news for mobile users longing for simpler times, like the year 2000 when the phone first came out of the Nokia manufacture. With its lack of bloat-ware apps and all the frills of a smartphone operating system, it is an extremely appealing buy for sure.
As stated, on its first iteration first revealed in February 2017, the Nokia 3310 reissue was not at all marketed for US users. This is of course due to the fact that, as a 2G-network device, the retro phone was rapidly losing stateside phone carriers that still offer GSM service.
The only one that still does is T-Mobile, and its 2G network most likely will remain supported up until 2020. HMD Global is not content with leaving the US market without a fight, so they have thrown together a new version of the 3310 that works on 3G networks.
All that is needed
Even a blind man could feel in his hand that HMD Global’s 3G reconfiguration of the Nokia 3310 is designed to evoke fond memories of yesteryear.
The shape is intimately familiar in its boxy contours. As a token update for more modern sensibilities, the new 3310 swaps the original’s monochrome LCD screen for a color one, a simplified Opera web browser to look up Facebook with, a basic 2-megapixel rear camera and MicroSD card for actual transferrable memory. It also has an updated version of the immortal classic game, Snake.
There is not much else, but for a longtime Nokia user, these features are more than enough.
The Nokia 3310 3G phone will be a major bargain for interested stateside buyers at its rock-bottom price of only $60. It is certainly cheaper than current Nokia smartphone models from HMD Global like the $110 Nokia 3, and a far cry from the $999 Apple iPhone X. It will certainly attract plenty of attention when the phone arrives this October 29.
