Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
Where do Ievenstart with the Nokia 3210 ? Not the original , which was one of the nerveless headphone to own back in a time whenStar Wars : Episode 1 — The Phantom Menacewasn’t even a matter , but the latest 2024 reissue that has come along to salvage us all from digital overload , the horror of social spiritualist , and the endless distraction that is the modern smartphone .
Except behind this frontal of selling - friendly do - goodery hide out a weapon of straining , a gimmick so smutty that I ’d rather sit down through multiple showings of Jar Jar Binks and the gang hopelessly trying to bring back the thaumaturgy ofA New Hopethan practice it .
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
The Nokia 3210 really is that bad
Right , allow ’s get some things unbent . If your young child wants a phone , the Nokia 3210 is a slap-up first mobile . If you want a phone with a long - lasting battery , it ’s also very good . If you have no interestingness in modern applied science at all and only require call and SMS , it ’s dead satisfactory if you ’re willing to pay off the 75 British pounds price , or around $ 95 .
But outside of those use cases , I ca n’t suppose who would desire to own it or why you would want to die hard the pain of using it .
It starts off OK , as it ’s rather quaint when you have to insert a battery inside the phone before power it up , and there ’s no question the shape , size , and weighting are all far more conformable than huge , heavy modern smartphones like theApple iPhone 15 Pro Max . The battery really does last for day and days , too , but this mistily pleasing wave of nostalgia ( or find , depending on your long time ) immediately disappears when you start using the phone .
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
BEEP ! BEEP ! BEEP !
This is what you will try for quite some time after you get going because the Nokia 3210 blare like a censor YouTube video with every keypress and at an obnoxiously loud volume . The mass function ( once you bump it , as there are no buttons ) has no event , lead you frantically searching through the phone to find some path to shut it up while every bleep keypress remind you of your failure . It was just the beginning of its deputation to make me never desire to utilize the telephone set ever again .
Not suitable for 2024
There ’s no Wi - Fi , and despite it being 2024 , the 4 K sign where I live on is sad , so it can contend to link even when I am posture at home . There ’s no way to put any apps on the Nokia 3210 , and at the very least , I require WhatsApp as I live in the U.K. , where it ’s the law . throw no apps is patently part of its supposed appeal , so it can ween you off social media without totally disconnecting . Very imposing , but why , then , is a Facebook app pre - instal ?
It ’s a stupid determination , and it would have made the 3210 far more operational if that other Meta property , WhatsApp , had been pre - installed . I could truly avoid Facebook and societal media yet still efficaciously communicate with my friends . The want of Wi - Fi also mean there ’s no entanglement browsing without using your connection ’s data , and because you wo n’t apply the Nokia 3210 on a full smartphone declaration with inexhaustible data ( it ’s pointless ) , this will get expensive quite promptly on a basic , pay - as - you - go contract .
HMD Global , the companythat cook Nokia - branded twist today , will argue this is another “ welfare ” of the whole digital detox matter . But most of the stuff I research for using my phone is n’t frivolous , it ’s selective information I need . If you ’re the same , then the 3210 will quickly financially penalise you for it . Not to care , though , as the screen is woeful . The 2.46 - inch LCD is coloured but much unsufferable to see in sunshine and at any other slant aside from directly in front of you . Trying to look at a website will be the least of your problem .
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
What else ? There ’s a dire 2 - megapixel photographic camera on the back , the wretched Snake biz that ’s as overdrive by Nokia as Mariah Carey’sAll I Want for Christmas is Youthe second October comes around each year , and you have to ascertain to type using an alphameric keyboard again . No , it ’s not nostalgic , it ’s ho-hum and plaguey .
I don’t know who this is for
Why have I take against the true cute and well - designed Nokia 3210 so much ? It ’s because I do n’t know who it ’s for . I do n’t corrupt the whole “ digital detox ” thing promoted by HMD Global , where the traumatized are apparently abandoning smartphones for characteristic sound .
Why do this ? Why not just delete societal media accounts and uninstall apps from a modernistic telephone ? It ’s the same end result as the Nokia 3210 purports to tender , without the added troublesomeness of not take Wi - Fi and no useful apps and features — from WhatsApp and Uber to mobile defrayment and pilotage .
It ’s not really for someone who does n’t care about all this , either . An elderly person may just need telephone call and SMS , but the 3210 ’s flyspeck computer keyboard is n’t made for anyone with poor manual dexterity , and why would you want to expend so much money on a phone that ’s really only for emergencies ? No , the Nokia 3210 is a nostalgia gambol , like thoseall - in - one biz consolesyou plug into the modern HDMI larboard on your forward-looking TV , get your retro gambling tingle , and then promptly leave about . HMD Global just wo n’t say it .
approach like this , the Nokia 3210 becomes a conversation art object and is unvoiced to dislike . A playfulness throwback to when fluid technical school was in its early childhood and societal media did n’t live , that should occur out at party where masses who do n’t care about tech today will reminisce about the one they had back in the secure honest-to-god days .
Well , this hackneyed sometime technical school cliche will quickly be charge to the past tense if youactually seek to usethe Nokia 3210 as your sound in 2024 . It ’s a curiosity from days gone by that , at all other times , belong in the drawer where you leave alone the original in 2007 when the iPhone came out .
