Nokia 3310 (2017) Review

There’s no surprise that the reason the new Nokia 3310 exists in the world of the £1000 smartphone is down to nostalgia. Nokia first introduced the 3310 to the market in the early 2000s. I remember them well. I was jealous of my friends who had one. I was around 11-13 at the time. I did however have a Nokia 3410, which was a shiny teal colour. Jump forward nearly 17 years, and we’ve gone full circle.

The phone isn’t particularly big, and resembles the similar 3310 released way back. This time around though it’s been made to look a little more modern, with a bigger colour screen at 2.4 inches and more of a roundness to its body. There is a silver border that follows the circumference of the screen to give it that classic look, and one that’s easily recognisable. Button placement is pretty much the same albeit a little chunkier. The function key is more of a square as there is now a D-pad to navigate its menus, and the answer and hang up calls are roughly the same. There are also a back and options key above these. All in all, a smart looking phone I would say.

The new Nokia 3310 comes in four colours: Warm Red, Yellow, Dark Blue, and Grey. All colours look equally as nice, and are very bold and vibrant giving this phone a sense of character, and definitely a way to reflect your personality. Are you a gloomy grey, or a bright yellow type of person?

Being a Nokia 3310, there isn’t really much to do in terms of software. Yes you get an extremely reduced web browser for very simple searches and there is also a very basic camera attached to the back. Don’t think Facebook and Instagram like you would on a proper smart phone like the iPhone or Samsung S8. It’s very basic in functionality and will definitely be of service if looking for some information, but no chance of watching Netflix or even a YouTube video here.

The camera is the same too. It’s very basic, and doesn’t perform too well. But to be honest with you I don’t think it’s been designed to. The phone is basic; it can take calls, send SMS messages, work as an MP3 player and even have access to the radio. What it does to well is its amazing battery life. You have 22 hours of talk time here and around a month of standby time. That’s seriously impressive, and would work well as some kind of backup phone that you kept in the car for emergencies.

The issue with that though is the fact that it uses a micro sim, and with most people running around with phones that now take a nano sim, it’s not going to be as easy to just place your existing sim into this phone. You’ll have to have another sim too which is why deals like Vodafone’s £1 a day exist. It can also survive some bumps and knocks too, and definitely feels as robust as the older model, even though it’s much lighter.

Software features also include the older Series 30 operating system that Nokia users of late will remember and feel instantly familiar. Those new to this however will get on just fine. The menus are very easy to navigate, and it’s got a nice screen with some pretty decent colours too. It’s just small, and has a tiny resolution of 360 x 240. For those of you interested, it comes with Bluetooth 3.0 and support for 2G, so no fast loading times on web pages unfortunately.

For those of you interested in this phone purely for the nostalgia, Snake is available once again. It’s a great little game and one that I could probably say revolutionised mobile gaming. It was one of those benchmark titles, very much like Quake or Half-Life on the PC. It’s been developed by Gamesloft now and includes things like multipliers, survival mode and also bombs.

The Nokia 3310 isn’t going to replace your smart phone, but it could make for a qwirky backup. It’s got all the feels of an original Nokia, and anyone who was in school for a chunk of the early 2000s are going to be pretty jealous of you when you whip this out.