I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down. - Tubthumping, by Chumbawumba.
Even after all this time I'm still at a loss to explain the phenomenon which was, and now is again, the Nokia 3310. It didn't have any outstanding features the predecessor 3210 hadn't already debuted - internal antenna, mobile games including Snake, T9 predictive texting, picture messages, ringtone composer, and interchangeable fascias - yet for some unfathomable reason in the early noughties this was the mobile to have. If the American Gothic painting was recreated for the era, the pitchfork held by the man would've been replaced by this phone.
Maybe it was the bar of soap size which enabled it to nestle snugly in the palm of your hand, or perhaps it was due to the fact this was the first Nokia that you could be sure would be fitted with a - oo-er missus - vibrating alert (some 3210's had them as standard, otherwise you had to seek out your local market stall phone guy to upgrade yours) or it could have been the big 'smile' formed by the main control keys somehow resonating with the post-millenial mood; we'd reached the year 2000 without destroying ourselves, though how were we to know that 9/11 and all that followed were soon to come crashing down on our innocent optimism?
In my opinion it was handiness of the 3310 which was behind its popularity. While many of the executive types preferred the more solid, but larger 6210 as a 'real' business mobile, for most users being able to hold and pocket the phone with ease was what made the difference. I was quite surprised when I first saw someone talking into what I thought was their cupped hand before I realised what they were doing, and even after - to this day in fact - as one who grew up with old style telephone handsets I still can't understand how a microphone can work so far away from someone's mouth.
The 3310's popularity spawned an explosion of bootleg Express-On covers. There were market stalls groaning with them in all manner of colours and styles; I even saw a transparent case with built in LED lights which twinkled when a call or text was received, but why anyone would want such a thing I don't know... There were ribbon dual SIM adapters which could just fit inside the shells, though in practice they could only operate with one SIM at a time rather than run both simultaneously. Everyone was frantically downloading new images to customise their little monochrome screens, or tapping a contorted series of keyed characters - 2aG4 3bF1 1dC5... - from books of coded tunes to create a personalised ringtone, and cursing when they realised as it played back on finishing they'd entered a discordantly bum note somewhere... Or were getting scalped by downloading tones from professional companies at extortionate prices. Polyphonic music like dirt flashed across the networks via message - brr-bu-brrbrr bu-brrbrr bu-brrbrrbrr... BeepBeep-BeepBeep! - and this before the mobile internet as we know it now was established.
These were wild times full of promise, yet already the ever moving finger had written on. Other manufactures were creating embryonic 'smart phones' and by early 2007 In San Francisco, a Mr Steve Jobs was announcing the launch of " ...a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. An iPod, a phone--are you getting it? " There were enough disciples of the Cult of Apple who Got It to spread the new religion despite Jobs' excruciatingly nerdy presentation: Poor Nokia and the rest of the industry didn't know what had hit them. They continued producing perfectly good and durable phones, but struggled to cope with the competition from Apple as well as the rising Android smartphone manufacturers, eventually fading out of the handset market.
But then, like a zombie thrusting their grey hands through the graveyard soil, Nokia were back from the dead. The brand name now acquired by HMD Global, the triumphal return heralded by a 'reimagining' of the classic 3310 was announced in 2017 to the delight of hipsters worldwide.
But nostalgia isn't what it used to be, and just as with the paunchy middle aged attempting to relive their youth to the sound of the equally wrinkly musicians they grew up with at a Butlins' weekender, there are some things best left in the past; the 3310 being one of them. In my view the re-creation is what the current BMW built Mini is to Alec Issigonis' 1959 concept; a twee, Noddy car childish curve bloated, poor imitation of the original; something which should never have been. HMD certainly pulled off a publicity masterstroke with their pastiche, but at heart it is a cynical fraud.
Why? Because the 'new' 3310 being sold for a typical £50 SIM free in the UK is in fact a £20 phone in a fancy shell. That's right; if you want a basic phone with most if not all of the features this pretentious rip-off offers you can buy them for as little as 79p (+£10 pre-pay top up) tied to a network at the time of writing. At that price they can be considered as disposable. You can also get such a bargain mobile released from it's operator shackles cheaply by purchasing a unlock code online. Given that, what are you paying the extra £30 for? The Nokia is also neither simple phone fish or smartphone fowl, its very limited 2.5G connectivity sitting uncomfortably between those alternatives, something Nokia themselves have admitted with the announcement of upgraded 3G and 4G/LTE - but still limited capability - models. Simple, robust phones are great, and so are many basic smartphones; so given the choice why would you have a poor imitation of one when you can have so much more for the same amount of your money?
And while I'm at it, let's deal with the famed durability and battery life myths. We've all seen the meme of a 3310 being dropped out of a B52 or the image of one hurled by an Indonesian protestor at the riot police; an urban legend has developed that only the Nokia and cockroaches would survive a nuclear war. But is it really so? I owned an old 3310 back in the day and was less than impressed by it; the plastic mushroom rivets holding the metal SIM card retainer broke, necessitating the use of super glue to repair, the operating system used to freeze or crash on a regular basis, and the screen was prone to episodes of sudden fading even with a fully charged battery. When it finally gave up the ghost - an escaping octopus ink blob engulfing much of the display - I was happy to let it go. As for the battery life, yes it was good for the time, but nothing exceptional. Today's basic phones last far longer.
I started this article with a Chumbawumba lyric, now one from Don Henley's Boys of Summer comes to mind, "A little voice inside my head said Don't look back, you can never look back." So don't be conned by the retro hype surrounding the Phone Of The Living Dead, if you come across an old one bequeathed to you by an elderly relative or on sale for pence at a boot sale they're worth keeping as a standby phone (UK 2G networks are likely to remain operational until the mid 2020's at least.) and if you really must have a new version then wait as long as possible for the fad to die out and the operators to start heavily discounting then. Otherwise, do as Old Father Time has done and pass the 3310 by.
