It is no longer news that HMD Global, a mobile company that brands itself as the home of Nokia phones, has unveiled a new generation of Nokia smartphones. These include Nokia 6, Nokia 6 Arte Black Limited Edition, Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and the famously beloved but extinct Nokia 3310.
Priced at €49.99, HMD has promised that the new 3310 will roll out globally in Q2 of 2017 in Warm Red and Yellow (both with a gloss finish of the polycarbonate exterior). Dark Blue and Grey (both with a matte finish).
The new 3310 surely looks smoother, finer and has curved lines as a bonus.
The phone is built on the S30+, an operating platform which was developed by MediaTek for Nokia, as part of the new generation of Nokia’s classic. The platform is part of what HMD acquired from Microsoft who bought the business from Nokia.
It does not come with the ability to load apps (sadly) but it comes with the basics of what you might need in a phone today: voice and text messaging, internet browsing (an Opera Mini browser), music (51 hours of MP3s), camera (2-megapixel!), a coloured screen, 2.5G internet and some internal upgrades: micro-USB charging port, headphone jack, microSD storage and Bluetooth.
And, it has two SIM slots and the unforgettable “Snake” game.
The “Candy Bar” sized Nokia 3310 that was unveiled at the world mobile conference in Barcelona, will surely evoke a feeling of nostalgia in users who were conversant with the classic Nokia that was the king of the mobile phone industry in its heyday. And, HMD is banking on that nostalgia for sales. Experts think that the motive might be to present a device that can potentially onboard people to other Nokia devices.
How well will the new Nokia 3310 do?
Well, the phone will be a good sell, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where price is the key deciding factor for most gadgets purchases. It will compete well with any low quality brand that has dominated the market.
But to the tech savvy generation, the device will offer an experience that is a far-cry from what the Apple–dominated market has offered for over a decade.
The smartphone fatigue notwithstanding, much of its use will be as the ideal first phone; for making and receiving calls (that type that can be lost without much ado). Or a phone that people can use when they don’t want to receive emails or social-network notifications. Except HMD has more in the bag that it is yet to let out, the new 3310 is just going to be a regular phone.