Nokia have revealed that they are soon relaunching the beloved Nokia 3310.
This might seem like a strange move, in a world where move people than ever connect to the net via a mobile device – after all, the original had no internet capabilities – so why are people (myself included) so excited?
The original was a phone that people owned, not the other way round. The simple fact was – people could open up the back of the phone and change the battery at any given point. You did not have to send it back to the manufacturer. Arguably, the 3310 was the Trill Symbiont of the mobile world: a new battery and an express-on cover later and your phone was as new as the day you took it out of the box. Such zombie-levels of resurrection are something modern phones can only dream of.
More than the ease of being able to hack your own phone – the relaunch of the 3310 will succeed for one other reason: nostalgia.
Ask anyone about the 3310, and while harking back to the joy of the high-score on snake, they’ll also tell you the joys of being a teenage-Beethoven as they composed their own ringtone.
The 3310 reminds us of a simpler time (for a lot of people, their teenage years) when we weren’t constantly connected or updated. This was a phone that news (fake or otherwise) could not get to.
If anyone doubts that nostalgia really is that big a deal – ask yourself why the iPhone has heptic feedback and a option to make the screen-buttons sound like a physical keypad…
If you think it’s just Nokia, Blackberry have just announced that they are releasing a phone with physical buttons.
It’s no surprise, really, that mobile giants turn to the nostalgia machine in 2017. The release of the Nokia (and Blackberry) will undoubtedly be huge money spinners (in the wake of last year’s failed mobile launches) but they will also act as societial pascifiers in a world where ideologies have gone askew.
So when the new Nokia 3310 launches, I suggest you take a long, hard look at the product you’re buying.
Are one of the world’s biggest mobile giants selling you a phone; or rose tinted glasses?
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