Nokia 3310: The Game is ON
It's 2017. It's the year which will be marked as "Nokia's Homecoming" into the mobile phone business. The company is now owned by a Finnish company, HMD Global Oy who is operating since December 2016. They prefer the name HMD for their enterprise and comprises of over 500 employees, mostly from the original Nokia company.
This might surprise you but, HMD's first announced phone wasn't Nokia 6. It was Nokia 150, a feature phone which runs on Nokia 30+ series OS. They announced the 150 just after 13 days of officially acquiring the business, i.e. on 13th December, 2016.
The company later on decided to hit the market by a storm and announced the first-ever Nokia devices running on 'pure' Android, the Nokia 6, 5 and 3. Along with them, they have decided to launch a revamped version of Nokia 3310 and called it the same. For those who don't know, Nokia 3310 is also known for it's 'Indestructible' quality. It is one of the most successful phone ever made in the history of mobile phones (in terms of sale).
So now the big question- Can the new Nokia 3310 be the new era sensation? Will this become a trend-setter in the smartphone decade? Let's find out everything about the 3310.
The time I started to review this device, it got challenging because I actually haven't used a feature-phone since 2011. The challenges were: Nokia fan and Smartphone user. So I decided to review it as a "dumb-phone" in the year 2017, rather than a smartphone and I promise that, I will stay un-biased towards the company (no matter how much I love Nokia). So let's begin with the review!
Design and Built-quality:
The feature-phone looks amazing. It is made up of plastic, but the built-quality and design is so premium. The 'big brother' is known for its 'indestructibility' and so the 'little one' is assured to have similar quality. The phone comes in four new eye-catching colours, the Warm Red, Dark Blue, Yellow and Grey. All the colours have glossy finish, except for the Blue one which comes in Matte finish. I could only manage to get my hands on the grey one though, but I feel that the blue one will look much better.
Network and Connectivity:
The Nokia 3310 comes in two variants, i.e. the Single-SIM and the Dual-SIM. The one I used was a Dual-SIM variant. The phone comes with just one network connectivity option, i.e. GSM or 2G. There is no WiFi option, so just forget about the faster internet connectivity. The phone runs on Nokia's feature phone OS, so you will not get any instant messaging apps like WhatsApp messenger, WeChat, etc. The other connectivity options are better like Bluetooth 3.0 and USB 2.0, so you can transfer your data from one device to another quickly.
Now seriously?! What the hell is wrong with you guys?! You have not provided with simple connectivity options like 3G and WiFi. In India, we have LTE connectivity now and our phones will still be on 2G? I mean seriously?! I know it's a feature phone, but that argument cannot be accepted, as the company is charging around 3310 INR (51 USD) for the device. For that price you can easily get a 4G phone in India (credit goes to the Jio). I know, the quality of that phone might not be that good, but still LTE counts!
Display:
The device packs a 2.4 inch TFT coloured display with 167 pixel per inch (ppi) density. The display is larger than the original 3310 and colourful. The quality of the display is quite remarkable indoors, but its performance is just average when it comes to the outdoor performance. The colours produced by the display seems natural and the display size is also appropriate.
Camera:
Unlike the original Nokia 3310, the newer one has camera set-up installed in it. Although, it's just a 2 megapixel shooter with LED-flash, but still it counts. Okay, so you are living in the era where you have 41 MP shooters on your smartphones (ironically, made by the same company!), but what can you expect from a feature phone. The camera performance is good if you use it outside in bright light, but it fails to maintain the similar quality in the low-light conditions. The LED-flash cannot be your saviour and must only be used a flashlight!
Performance and Memory:
Okay, I know that there is no point in talking about the performance of a feature-phone, but I think that we can rate its performance too. Like when I was browsing the internet (Yes, I did browsed!), the phone froze for a while, before it re-gained its pulse again. What I love the most about the Nokia feature phones is the 'Cancel button'. If something goes wrong, you press that button and you are out of there. If its still not working, you always have the option to remove the battery!
The phone got just 16 MB of internal memory! The memory available to the user is just 5-6 MB! I'm not kidding guys, but the good news is that you can use a microSD card to simply boost the memory to 32 GB. This makes it convenient to store your data like photos, music, videos, etc.
Battery Life:
A 1200 mAh li-ion battery provides juice to this phone. The company is claiming that a single charge can give a month's standby, which is awesome. I mean no smartphone can do that. I used this phone for over 2 hours (mostly played game!) and I was very much satisfied with the battery life. The phone never got heat-up like our modern day smartphones and I was still left with over two days of charging. Isn't this hilarious?!
U.S.P- The Snake:
The Snake is back! Even if you are not a Nokia fan today, I can still safely say that you must have played the Snake at least once in your life on a Nokia device. It's one of the most addictive game back in the early 2000s. The company is now trying to use the Snake, in order to sell the device because most of us have so much of fond memories attached to that game. So the big question, Is the revived version of Snake better than the older version?
The answer to that question would be a plain NO. The new Snake is not as amazing as the original one. Surely, its colourful and better looking than the original one, but I didn't find it to be as good as the earlier one. The reason might be the new games we play on our device like Asphalt 8 or FIFA, right? No! It is missing the appeal that makes you play a little longer and ultimately leading to addiction. Sorry Nokia, but the original Snake is irreplaceable.
This might surprise you but, HMD's first announced phone wasn't Nokia 6. It was Nokia 150, a feature phone which runs on Nokia 30+ series OS. They announced the 150 just after 13 days of officially acquiring the business, i.e. on 13th December, 2016.
So now the big question- Can the new Nokia 3310 be the new era sensation? Will this become a trend-setter in the smartphone decade? Let's find out everything about the 3310.
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| Tech Specs- Nokia 3310 |
The Review:
Okay, this might sound a little rude, but I was actually laughing while drafting the technical specifications sheet of Nokia 3310. It's not because of the specifications (what better can you expect from a feature phone), but the fact that I'm actually reviewing a feature phone that too in the year 2017. I never thought of doing so, but let me tell you that I'm a big Nokia-fan and loved all their devices from the past.The time I started to review this device, it got challenging because I actually haven't used a feature-phone since 2011. The challenges were: Nokia fan and Smartphone user. So I decided to review it as a "dumb-phone" in the year 2017, rather than a smartphone and I promise that, I will stay un-biased towards the company (no matter how much I love Nokia). So let's begin with the review!
Design and Built-quality:The feature-phone looks amazing. It is made up of plastic, but the built-quality and design is so premium. The 'big brother' is known for its 'indestructibility' and so the 'little one' is assured to have similar quality. The phone comes in four new eye-catching colours, the Warm Red, Dark Blue, Yellow and Grey. All the colours have glossy finish, except for the Blue one which comes in Matte finish. I could only manage to get my hands on the grey one though, but I feel that the blue one will look much better.
Network and Connectivity:
The Nokia 3310 comes in two variants, i.e. the Single-SIM and the Dual-SIM. The one I used was a Dual-SIM variant. The phone comes with just one network connectivity option, i.e. GSM or 2G. There is no WiFi option, so just forget about the faster internet connectivity. The phone runs on Nokia's feature phone OS, so you will not get any instant messaging apps like WhatsApp messenger, WeChat, etc. The other connectivity options are better like Bluetooth 3.0 and USB 2.0, so you can transfer your data from one device to another quickly.
Now seriously?! What the hell is wrong with you guys?! You have not provided with simple connectivity options like 3G and WiFi. In India, we have LTE connectivity now and our phones will still be on 2G? I mean seriously?! I know it's a feature phone, but that argument cannot be accepted, as the company is charging around 3310 INR (51 USD) for the device. For that price you can easily get a 4G phone in India (credit goes to the Jio). I know, the quality of that phone might not be that good, but still LTE counts!
Display:The device packs a 2.4 inch TFT coloured display with 167 pixel per inch (ppi) density. The display is larger than the original 3310 and colourful. The quality of the display is quite remarkable indoors, but its performance is just average when it comes to the outdoor performance. The colours produced by the display seems natural and the display size is also appropriate.
Camera:
Unlike the original Nokia 3310, the newer one has camera set-up installed in it. Although, it's just a 2 megapixel shooter with LED-flash, but still it counts. Okay, so you are living in the era where you have 41 MP shooters on your smartphones (ironically, made by the same company!), but what can you expect from a feature phone. The camera performance is good if you use it outside in bright light, but it fails to maintain the similar quality in the low-light conditions. The LED-flash cannot be your saviour and must only be used a flashlight!
Performance and Memory:
Okay, I know that there is no point in talking about the performance of a feature-phone, but I think that we can rate its performance too. Like when I was browsing the internet (Yes, I did browsed!), the phone froze for a while, before it re-gained its pulse again. What I love the most about the Nokia feature phones is the 'Cancel button'. If something goes wrong, you press that button and you are out of there. If its still not working, you always have the option to remove the battery!
The phone got just 16 MB of internal memory! The memory available to the user is just 5-6 MB! I'm not kidding guys, but the good news is that you can use a microSD card to simply boost the memory to 32 GB. This makes it convenient to store your data like photos, music, videos, etc.
Battery Life:
A 1200 mAh li-ion battery provides juice to this phone. The company is claiming that a single charge can give a month's standby, which is awesome. I mean no smartphone can do that. I used this phone for over 2 hours (mostly played game!) and I was very much satisfied with the battery life. The phone never got heat-up like our modern day smartphones and I was still left with over two days of charging. Isn't this hilarious?!
U.S.P- The Snake:
The Snake is back! Even if you are not a Nokia fan today, I can still safely say that you must have played the Snake at least once in your life on a Nokia device. It's one of the most addictive game back in the early 2000s. The company is now trying to use the Snake, in order to sell the device because most of us have so much of fond memories attached to that game. So the big question, Is the revived version of Snake better than the older version?
The answer to that question would be a plain NO. The new Snake is not as amazing as the original one. Surely, its colourful and better looking than the original one, but I didn't find it to be as good as the earlier one. The reason might be the new games we play on our device like Asphalt 8 or FIFA, right? No! It is missing the appeal that makes you play a little longer and ultimately leading to addiction. Sorry Nokia, but the original Snake is irreplaceable.
The Conclusion:
We are in 2017 and most of us use smartphones now, so you can't use it as your primary device. You cannot use WhatsApp for sending messages, or any other messaging app for that fact. The only way to do that, would be the in-built Message app. This phone can be used mostly for making calls or surfing internet (only when you don't have your smartphone near you!) and nothing else.
The company is using Snake as a marketing gimmick, which is also not very great to be honest. The best part about this phone is the battery-life. No smartphone can give you a month standby and 4-5 days of battery backup (if you use it as your secondary phone). You got four really eye-catching colours to choose from and the phone is doing really according to the reports, especially in United Kingdom and India.
I will rate this phone 3 out of 5 because of its design, quality and battery. I have deducted 1/2 point for the price and the Snake.
I hope you liked the review. If you have any questions, doubts or suggestion please feel to reach out to be. You can mail me directly by clicking on the link- Yash Gupta.
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