For the past month or so, there was a rumour going around the internet that Nokia would bring back the iconic 3310 phone. The original phone came out in 2000, 17 years ago and the majority of rumours suggested that Nokia would just start manufacturing the old phone again, unchanged.

New 3310

It would have been odd if Nokia had brought back the 3310 without changing anything, with a greyscale screen and no camera the original phone is a bit of a dinosaur now in 2017, so for some it may be a disappointment but Nokia has done a good job with the retro cues and button layout.

With the new phone, Nokia is blatantly pulling on the nostalgia strings, the entire website marketing the 3310 is harking back, but that isn’t a bad thing.

What’s new?

With the new 3310, the design is relatively similar to the old phone, but the design is much slimmer, it’s much lighter and the battery life is comparable to the old model with a month on standby and 22 hours talk time. However, Nokia didn’t go overboard with packing it with new technology – it’s still a very stripped back phone. It doesn’t have 3G, only the old 2G which operates on 900 MHz and 1800 MHz.

The 3310 is available four colours, red and yellow are gloss and blue and grey are in a matte finish, it also has a much better screen than the old one with a non-HD 2.4-inch screen, support for Bluetooth, torch and a FM radio. You can access Facebook on it via the included Opera mini browser, although remember it doesn’t support 3G – only 2.5G.

How much is it?

Nokia has also been sensible with the price, at £41 / €49 it makes a very attractive backup phone to buy for a lot of people, it will be available in the second quarter of 2017.