If you long for a simpler time, the good old days when the Spice Girls were top of the charts and the millennium was just around the corner, then you may have owned the classic Nokia 3210 – and it may shock you that the classic mobile phone is now 25 years old. Released in 1999, it was one of the first handsets without an external antenna and introduced the world to everyone’s on-the-go favourite game Snake.
Now 25 years later, tech firm HMD – who own the rights to produce Nokia-branded phones – is relaunching the Nokia 3210 with a brand new version. We reckon the device looks good in its Scuba Blue, Grunge Black and Y2K Gold colours, but it only bears a passing resemblance to the old phone. That’s partly down to the need to boost screen size, as the original 3210 had an incredibly poky 1.5-inch monochrome display. How on earth did we all text on that?
The new 3210 has a larger, taller colour screen plus it adds a 2MP camera with flash to the back so you can take snaps if you need to. It even has a newer version of Snake to keep you occupied on your commute. This is no smartphone though, with HMD saying it’s a phone for cutting back on screen time amidst the rise in popularity of so-called ‘dumbphones’.
“The relaunch of a phone icon, the Nokia 3210 feeds into the increasing popularity and continued resurgence of feature phones as growing numbers of young people switch off and embrace the digital detox movement,” HMD said.
“And where the Nokia 3210’s concerned, those wanting to take a break from social media, the internet and endless apps (whether that be for a day, a weekend, or indefinitely), can now do so in serious late nineties / early noughties style.”
You can pop your SIM card straight into this phone and enjoy the simplicity of only having access to calls and texts. It has 4G too, so it won’t stop working when the UK turns all its 3G networks off. It’s also an opportunity to retrain your thumbs to type out texts using a number pad again.
There’s also an MP3 player and FM radio plus 3.5mm headphone jack to keep things vaguely modern, and it’s good to see a USB-C port for charging. There’s only 128MB memory on board – very 90s – but the phone takes microSD cards if you need to expand the storage.
“The original Nokia 3210 has a special place in many consumers’ hearts as one of the best-selling mobile phones of all time,” said Ben Wood, Founder of the Mobile Phone Museum. “It’s the perfect product to reimage for the modern era given its strong heritage and iconic design.”
The new 3210 also has a 1,450mAh removable battery that has days of standby time and nine and a half hours of call time. This is a phone you can charge up and trust to stay alive for days on end, just like the Nokias of old.
