The phone that is considered the most indestructible in the world—a giant of its time and even the greatest ever—is back.
The Nokia 3310, first released in 2000 at the onset of the modern mobile era, is set to relaunch at this year’s Mobile World Congress in two weeks. For the last 17 years, the device has been the subject of countless stress tests, endless memes, and nostalgia-soaked love letters.
Perhaps the most admired phone ever released, the 3310 will be sold for €59 (around $63) as a feature phone, according to renowned phone leaker Evleaks. It will be produced by Finnish company HDM Global, the new owners of the Nokia name, and is expected to launch alongside several other Nokia models including the Nokia 5 and Nokia 3. The company already released the Nokia 6 in China earlier this year.
Details are scarce on the devices, but we should expect the 3310 to offer the basics, along with the memory for a time when phones could last weeks without a recharge and didn’t need multiple accessories to keep them protected.
The Nokia 5, on the other hand, is looking more like a full-fledged smartphone. It will reportedly feature a 5.2-inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM, and a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera. The Nokia 3 is said to be the company’s entry-level Android device, and will retail at around $158.
Bringing back the Nokia 3310 could be a pivotal moment for the new mobile division of Nokia. It looks like HDM wants to remind everyone that the new company is founded on the same principles as the one we know and love, and a reintroduction of one of the greatest tech devices of all time could be a statement for what we should expect in the future.
Nostalgia is proving a worthy emotion to sell to. Last year, Nintendo rereleased its NES as the NES Classic Edition. It has now been seven months since it went on sale, and the device is still out of stock at most retailers, and bidding well above MSRP on eBay.
Speaking of eBay, the original Nokia 3310 can be found on the e-commerce site for around $30 if you can’t wait until MWC to start playing Snake again.
H/T The Next Web
