The rumours are true – the Nokia 3310 is back, and it even has Snake.
The updated version of the early noughties icon, famed for its seemingly indestructible qualities, was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday.
Anticipation of the device, a phone that doesn’t even have 3G, has been high ever since news of its release leaked earlier this year. The relaunched 3310 is produced by new mobile firm HMD Global, which licensed the Nokia brand last year. HMD is filled with key ex-Nokia people, and the phone appears to have lost none of the charm and identity of the 17-year-old original.
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“This is what consumers have been asking us for, and so we decided that we’d just do it and have some fun with it, said Florian Seiche, president of HMD. “That’s the unique opportunity we have here at HMD with the Nokia brand.”
HMD Global President Florian Seiche poses for a photograph with the Nokia 3310 in London,. Photo: Reuters
The new Nokia 3310 is about half the thickness of the original. Photo: Reuters
The phone has a slightly bigger screen than its namesake, and in colour this time. It also has a camera on the back, which the original did not. It does have a removable back cover and battery, and runs an updated version of the original’s S30 software. The software behaves so much like the original and followups, with games like Snake built in, you might think you were caught inside some sort of time loop. The phone will cost about US$50 when released in the second quarter of 2017. The original cost in 2000 was about triple that.
