TOBY SHAPSHAK: Snakes on a phone
The Nokia 3310 was a first for some phone owners, and it defined the reliability of the 2G voice era
It is still only a rumour, but the much-speculated about return of Nokia’s iconic 3310 cellphone caused a not insubstantial wave of media attention last week. There is a nostalgia for Nokia that belies its current status as a fallen giant of the pre-smartphone era, a sad reputation it shares with Motorola (the first dominant phone maker) and BlackBerry (whose CrackBerries first gave us mobile e-mail). There was a time, when it was making these iconic 3310 phones, that Nokia sold two out of three cellphones in the world. It was riding the mobile wave, as the world lapped up cellphones. For many people, the 3310 was their first phone, and it is this that is behind the outpouring of sentimentality on social media and radio shows. My first cellphone was the Nokia 2110, an equally iconic phone that I have kept (along with a 6310, Motorola’s StarTac and later RAZR, an original iPhone and others). Nokia ultimately sold 126m 3310 units. But why was it so popular? It isn’t only because it wa...
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