How Managed IT Services in the UK Workplace Aid Productivity
Known back in the noughties as the ‘indestructible’ handset, the updated version of the Nokia icon returns complete with one-month standby time, colour screen and oodles of nostalgia.
News of its release leaked earlier this year and anticipation of the device landing has been high ever since, even though it doesn’t even have 3G!
The re-launched 3310 is produced by new mobile firm HMD Global, which licensed the Nokia brand in 2016. HMD is staffed by key ex-Nokia personnel, and the phone appears to have lost none of the charm and identity of the nearly twenty year old original.
Florian Seiche, president of HMD commented “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”.
So, what’s the 3310 really like? Well, it has a slightly bigger screen than its name sake, and in colour this time. Unlike the original, it now has a camera on the back and it has a removable back cover and battery, and runs an updated version of the original’s S30 software. It also comes in four colours. When released in the second quarter of 2017, the phone will likely cost in the region of £42. In comparison, the original cost in 2000 was £129.99 on pay as you go.
HMD has promised that the new Nokia 3310 will be just as durable as the old version – seen by many as indestructible by its teenage fans of the 2000s. Size-wise, the new 3310 is about half the thickness of the original and has ten times the talk time, with 22 hours, and twice the standby time: one month – a duration almost unheard of in 2017.
It’s charged via microUSB, so there’s no need to carry the pin Nokia charger of old, and there’s even a headphones socket in the bottom.
It has been said that the new 3310 is merely a marketing exercise but some industry figures have been more optimistic. Out of the approximately twenty million phones sold in the UK each year, one million of them are still feature phones such as the 3310 so there could still be a place for a basic handset.
“As much as people would love to have a smaller phone with no doubt a much better battery life and much better signal, I do not think anyone would compromise on the ability to use the most necessary features like internet, email and apps that we have all become accustomed to!”
"I do, however, think the new 3310 would be perfect as a second phone that you could take when you go out so you do not have such a bulky or expensive phone that you risk losing or damaging” remarked Lee Butler, Managing Director Town & County.
