Why you don't need the Nokia 3310

Everyone was praising the Nokia 3310 after it was introduced in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2017. It’s amazing how much hype it was able to accumulate at the show, which was especially evident at HMD’s booth with the giant crowds huddling over the phones. Unbelievable is one way of putting it, given that we’re talking about an updated take on a classic. To a certain extent, this lowly spec’d feature phone seemed to interest more people than the new phones Sony announced. And that’s just crazy!

Honestly, would you use a phone that’s been kinda updated years after the original one was first announced? Could you seriously go back to using a feature phone as your daily driver? We know that many consumers have grown accustomed to the exorbitant and diverse features found in today’s modern smartphones, so it begs the question of whether or not this phone is just a passing fad, or a legitimate contender.

Going back to my point, it’s tough for me to believe that people would actually go far enough to buy the Nokia 3310 – even in the case when pricing is a concern. So with that, here are five reasons why you don’t need the Nokia 3310.

• Number one, it’s back to the old school way of typing. You use nothing but the dial pad to type on the Nokia 3310. Sure it’s quick enough for simple responses, but even with predictive texting, I wouldn’t achieve close to the same rate I get with a touch keyboard. In the end, the process just takes longer.
• Number two, I can’t take its 2 megapixel camera seriously. I know that the amount of megapixels in a camera doesn’t justify its true potential, but then again, we’re talking about 2-megapixels here folks! Pictures and video matter a lot to me, but here with the Nokia 3310, it’s probably going to be used as a last resort – when nothing else better is around.
• Number three, why would I want to subject myself to 2G data speeds? It’s even worse for AT&T customers, because the carrier killed off its legacy 2G edge network back at the beginning of this year – meaning that it’d be pointless to even attempt to use the Nokia 3310.  Unless you’re only going to be using it for phone calls. Besides that, it’s excruciating to watch a page slowly come up on that tiny screen.
• Number four, the menu driven interface is just a pain to navigate. Yes, it’s pretty straightforward traversing through the menus, but it isn’t necessarily convenient either. Once you get into one menu, you then sometimes need to go down another level just to adjust a setting or something. And there’s no way to quickly switch from one screen to another, much like multi-tasking on a smartphone.
• And finally, you can just buy a cheap smartphone for about the same price. Why pay the same amount of money for less features? In this day and age, we’ve grown accustomed to using certain apps and features. Even if I did have $50 to spend on a burner phone, I’d probably just find one of those prepaid Android phones for just about the same cost – or on Craigslist – and I’d get more out of them.

Okay, so you can tell that I’m not planning on buying a Nokia 3310 anytime soon. And even if I wanted to relive some nostalgia and play snake, I’d probably take out my old Nokia 5110 and play it just the same way on an actual monochrome screen. But to be fair, there are some aspects about the phone that people find useful, like its durability over today’s glass surfaced phones, longer battery life, and overall simplicity. I’m sure for some people the rebooted Nokia 3310 has its place in the glove compartment, but for me, I think I’ll pass.