Yahoo News 7 new Nokia 3310 features you'll wish your iPhone had
The second coming isn't nigh, it's already happened. No, we're not talking about Jesus, but the return of the most iconic mobile phone of all time, the beloved Nokia 3310.
A device that defined a generation and then some, this little brick of plastic and circuitry is one of the best-selling phones in history, and the only device anyone around at the turn of the millennium wanted to own. Now, 17 long years since its namesake was first introduced, and 13 years after it was removed from production lines, the Nokia 3310 is back.
Its specs sheet might be small and its abilities understated, but that doesn't mean this handset couldn't teach your current smartphone powerhouse a thing or two. If the following Nokia 3310 features were on the likes of the iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy S7, we wouldn't get so excited about our annual upgrade rolling around.
1. A MONTH-LONG BATTERY LIFE
The Nokia 3310's battery life is a thing of legend. Capable of going weeks between power-ups, charging this thing was a novelty rather than a chore. You could fall into a coma, wake up, recover and you'd still not needed to have connected this magical little machine to the mains.
With the new model offering similar month-long staying power (on standby, there's 22 hours of continuous talk time), it's only a reminder of how our need for nightly smartphone charges is a modern-day nightmare.
2. THAT FLUORESCENT YELLOW COLOUR SCHEME
The days of black-and-white smartphones might be over, but the additional colour schemes on offer still tend to be on the safe side. Despite their painfully bad names like "Striking Black", "Prestige Gold" and "Really Blue" – all genuine smartphone colours – phones just don't pack the attention-grabbing punch they used to.
If silver, gold or the pinkish tones of whatever rose gold is supposed to be aren't for you, there's very little choice in the high-end handset space. That's why we want the new 3310's face-meltingly bright fluorescent yellow paint job to be a compulsory option on all future phones, just like the building site hi-vis that clearly inspired it.
3. A POCKET-FRIENDLY FORM FACTOR
Just as fashion dictates that our jeans must grow skinnier and tighter, the tech scene has insisted that the phones we carry around need to be as big as that Filofax your grandad still insists on owning.
Yes, the new Nokia 3310's 12.8mm thick body might be positively plump compared with the 7.1mm form of the iPhone 7, but its overall footprint is much, much smaller. Capable of fitting in the palm of your hand thanks to its sub-sized 2.4-inch display, it won't stretch out your skinny jeans and make your legs look weirdly lumpy on a night out.
4. SUPPORT FOR WIRED HEADPHONES
One for the iPhone 7 owners here, as the new Nokia 3310 offers a feature missing from the most luxurious of all the high-end handsets: support for traditional cabled headphones. Apple might have ditched the standard 3.5mm in favour of pushing us all into buying a new pair of Bluetooth cans, but the Nokia 3310 2017 edition proudly kicks things old school.
The base-mounted 3.5mm audio jack means you can listen to music on the move without worrying about drained headphones or wireless interference. It's portable audio as intended – the plug, play, party approach that doesn't come with vibe-troubling battery concerns.
5. A TRULY ENJOYABLE MOBILE GAMING EXPERIENCE
When the original Nokia 3310 came out, you were near enough limited to one on-the-move gaming option. Fortunately, that just happened to be the best mobile game there ever was, is or ever will be – Snake. The new Nokia might have jazzed it up, but it's back and bringing all the nostalgia feels with it.
Now, iPhone and Android owners have hundreds of thousands of games to choose, some to rival your console offerings, but things just aren't the same. Yes, you can download Snake to pretty much any phone in the world, but playing it on the physical number keys of the 3310 just gives you a warm feeling that no 99p app can provide. It's like a tech hug from the past.
6. MICROSD EXPANSION
Another one for the iPhone owners - the ability to expand the phone's internal storage for the price of the change in your pocket rather than a trip to the loans department at the bank.
Yes, there might only be a lowly 16MB (no, that's not a typo) of internal storage on this proudly archaic dumb phone, making its microSD expansion skills a necessity, but the 3310's storage step-ups are something iPhone owners have been demanding for years to no avail. Thanks, Apple, we'll just keep on waiting then, yeah?
7. A WALLET-FRIENDLY PRICE TAG
When it comes to smartphones, you get what you pay for, but there's no escaping that the new Nokia 3310 is still ridiculously cheap.
With a €49 asking price (UK pricing is still TBC), you could get 23 of these for the price of one 128GB iPhone 7 Plus. Sure, the likes of Apple and Samsung throw in a few (read loads) more features, but can you really put a price on all the positive emotions the 3310 drags up?
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