It's 2024, but Nokia has re-released a 1999 phone

Love Fan'er

2024-05-09 18:49Posted on the official account of Guangdong Aifaner

2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Nokia 3210. To commemorate this momentous occasion, Nokia recently revived this classic with the official release of the Nokia 3210 4G.

The Nokia 3210 is the second-best-selling phone in the world of all time – the number one is the Nokia 1100.

Since its release in 1999, it has sold a total of 160 million units. With its rugged and reliable form factor and smart design, Nokia's "human" philosophy has resounded around the world.

As the king of a generation, the Nokia 3210 carries the memories of many people, and a snake composed of pixel blocks alone is enough for everyone to indulge in for a long time. Until now, when people see it, their hearts are still full of Nokia feelings.

The newly released Nokia 3210 4G has three colors: black, blue, and gold, with the blessing of metallic coating, which brings a very good look and feel overall.

The 2.4-inch IPS screen used in this phone is not large, but it is still much larger than the classic that has been reproduced, and the screen-to-body ratio has been greatly improved. There's also a two-megapixel rear camera, which is a new addition.

In terms of appearance, the Nokia 3210 4G is very similar in style, although it is different from the classic design of the past. When you get started, the familiar nine-square digital buttons will still give you a retro feel, and the slightly protruding curved lines on the sides of the phone are also in the same vein as the Nokia 3210.

Compared to the original predecessor in 1999, the new Nokia 3210 4G has a thinner and shorter body, but with a slight increase in width.

The phone uses HMD's S30+ operating system and is equipped with a UNISOC T107 chip that supports Bluetooth 5.0 and FM radio capabilities. It has 128 MB of storage inside the body, and it is also possible to expand the memory via microSD, but it can only go up to 32GB.

In terms of battery life, the phone is equipped with a 1450mAh replaceable battery that can provide up to 9.8 hours of talk time. At a time when even Apple is fully embracing Type-C, the Nokia 3210 4G also uses a Type-C interface, so you don't need to bring an extra cable when you go out as a backup.

The Nokia 3210 4G is a non-smartphone, but it's still a bit more "smart" than a traditional feature phone.

Its name tells us that it is a "4G phone". In the era of mobile payments, the Nokia 3210 4G supports the use of Alipay for payments.

For the overseas version, you can also download a simplified "cloud app" that allows you to use apps like news, weather, and even YouTube Shorts to watch shorts.

Of course, the classic game Snake still exists.

In 1999, the share of the mobile phone market was being divided between the Big Three: Nokia 26.9%, Motorola 16.9%, and Ericsson 10.5%. At that time, Nokia and Ericsson's mobile phone chips were provided by Philips. However, a bolt of lightning redrew the sphere of influence of the mobile phone market.

In early 2000, a lightning bolt struck Philips' factory in New Mexico, causing a fire that required the multimillion-dollar chips supplied to Nokia and Ericsson. Philips assured them that the situation was under control and normal production would resume within a week. Ericsson chose to trust Philips, but Nokia vigilantly observed the fire and began to prepare.

Within a few days, Nokia realized that Philips was in a difficult situation and could not provide the chips it needed in time, so it immediately called on other semiconductor companies to bid for the chips and quickly finalized the deal with the chip supplier. However, Ericsson, on the other side, remained indifferent, believing in Philips' promises and decided to wait further.

2 weeks later, Philips admitted that it would take 6-8 weeks for the factory to return to normal, and when Ericsson's top management woke up in the crisis, Ericsson had lost 2 weeks of chip supply, and mobile phones could no longer be produced, and due to Ericsson's cumbersome approval policy, there was no way to replace suppliers in time, so their factory maintained a shutdown for more than 6 weeks.

Because almost no new phones were produced, Ericsson began to lose customers. Nokia, however, smelled a huge business opportunity, so it redesigned some of its existing phone models and introduced more low-cost phones with chips supplied from other semiconductor companies.

In the months that followed, Ericsson continued to struggle with losses, with Nokia eating into a portion of Ericsson's market share and further increasing its market share by 3.7%.

At this time, the share of the world's major mobile phone manufacturers is: Nokia 30.6%; Motorola 13.3%; Ericsson 9.7%.

Nokia was able to outperform its rivals that year, mostly because of the Nokia 3210, which also helped Nokia solidify its position.

In 2000, Nokia's mobile phone net sales accounted for 72% of Nokia's annual sales. That year, Nokia sold 128 million feature phones, resulting in net sales of 19.772 billion euros, while operating profit reached 3.908 billion euros.

Time magazine has selected the top 50 technology products that have influenced the world, and the Nokia 3210 is among them.

In addition to this, the Nokia 3210 has many awards: it is the first phone with a built-in antenna, which allows the phone to get rid of the protrusion of the antenna; It was also the first mobile phone to carry the snake game, which opened the history of mobile games......

Since then, Nokia has been climbing all the way, and before the advent of the smartphone era, Nokia has been the "hegemon" of the mobile phone industry.

Nokia has become the pride of Finland.

Nowadays, it has become difficult for us to live without smartphones. The emergence of the Nokia 3210 4G has added a different color to the field of mobile phones. Regarding its market feedback, it can already be glimpsed from the number of retweets on Nokia's Weibo.

In some people's minds, a classic Nokia mobile phone is like a retro classic car, although the shape is not trendy enough, the power and interior are not up to date, but the feeling of using it is very good, at least stable and steady.

In addition to feelings, there are also many groups who really need such a feature phone: such as those who want a "digital detox", or simply want to have a backup phone that can be thrown in their bag for a week without charging, and students who can't bring their smartphones to campus.

This may be the reason why the Nokia 3210 4G can be reincarnated.