Nokia nostalgia: 5 of our favourite phones, from ‘the banana to ‘the lipstick’

With the news that Nokia has licensed its name to a new company that will make smartphones and tablets, self-confessed Nokia nut Kevin Kwong recalls the best of the brand

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The Nokia N95. There was a time when everyone wanted one. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:53pm, 19 May 2016Updated: 2:54pm, 19 May 2016

Nokia lost its position as mobile-phone market leader to Apple and Samsung years ago, and in 2014 quit the market altogether, but there is still a ring to the Finnish brand – which is now being revived on smartphones and tablets – especially if you are a vintage handset collector.

Neo, a character in The Matrix played by Keanu Reeves, uses a Nokia 8110 in a scene from the film.

Unlike most phone makers today, who keep churning out models that have the same monotonous looks (like, a slab) Nokia used to release models that had daring and cutting-edge designs.

Sure, the smartphone operating systems of its latter years - remember Symbian? - were as buggy as the Amazon rainforest (Hello 7710), but some of their models truly stood out from the crowd and left a mark in the evolution of mobile phones.

These are five iconic Nokia models that once wowed the market, if not with their functionality then with their extraordinary shape and size. Oh for the good old days, when the brand - like its default ringtone - was cool and had real character.

The Nokia 8110 cell phone, nicknamed the banana, was released in 1996. Photo: Alamy