GOOD CALL?
Nokia's new 'dumbphone'
Nokia’s much-loved revamped ‘‘dumbphone’’ is now available in New Zealand after being unveiled earlier this year.
The Nokia 3310 3G, which costs $99, and is available from November 7, is designed to look and act just like the famous brick phone of old but it’s actually a fair bit nicer. While some of the features are the same – including the game Snake – the screen is much bigger and in colour. It also has 3G so it can work on modern cellphone networks but in New Zealand it’s only available with Spark. When I tested it, the most common reaction was people trying to touch or swipe on it.
It’s cute, and I even got smiles from strangers while using it in public, something most phones don’t elicit. The software takes some cues from more modern devices, with functions displayed in an app-style layout and including stuff like a torch and voice recorder that you wouldn’t find on the actual old hardware.
There’s even a pretty decent MP3 player that keeps your collection organised, shows your album art and even puts a control widget on the lock screen. You can just fill a MicroSD card with tunes and plug it in.
It also will last a couple of days without a charge, longer if you don’t use it much, and it happens to be competent at making and receiving calls, with support for standard wired headsets and the ability to sync contacts from your SIM or a nearby Android device via Bluetooth.
But that’s practically where the 3310’s list of abilities ends. I can’t really recommend it as a daily driver to anyone but the most devoted dumb-phone devotee.
Only if by chance you’re already using a phone from 2000, and the end of 2G looks like a cataclysm for you, might it be an option.
I know there are plenty of people who decry apps in all their forms and think all a phone needs to do is make calls, but giving up a smartphone added an extra layer of difficulty to basically everything in my life.
Nostalgia aside, we have to admit that a numerical keypad is not a handy way to operate a phone in 2017.
Most stuff, from ordering food or calling a cab to listening to music or a podcast, is technically possible on a phone like the 3310 3G, it just sucks. But a lot of basic things, like visual communication or running a quick web search to solve a question that had just occurred to you isn’t possible.
The phone can connect to simple web services (mobile only, no wi-fi) and technically has a browser, but nine out of ten times when I tried to go online I just got a blank screen or a bit of text and interminable loading.
I did Google something successfully once, but unfortunately Google didn’t have 240x320 screens in mind when it designed its results pages.
The most damning thing about the 3310 3G isn’t that it’s a cheap phone with pared-back features, it’s that it’s a phone entirely out of time.
You could get a basic 4G Android phone for the same price, probably a better call.
The only advantage of the 3310 is that it’s supposed to look and feel like something old, and aside from the fact that this hasn’t been achieved – the new version of Snake is pointlessly modernised, for example, not fun enough for new players but with no nostalgia factor – it’s just not practical.
– SMH