If any phone can sell itself on nostalgia alone, that phone is the Nokia 3310.
It’s one of the most popular mobiles of all time, remembered for its near-indestructible build, long-lasting battery and legendary Snake (well, Snake 2 if we’re being accurate) game, and the team licensing the Nokia phone name has jumped at the chance to reignite the love for a phone which was once the leader in the mobile market.
Enter the new Nokia 3310, a homage to the iconic handset with a helping of modern-day upgrades. If you were a fan of the 3310 and long for those simpler times, the likelihood is you’ll want to pick this up.
If you're less familiar with the original though, this is just another feature phone which won't satisfy your smartphone sensibilities with a price that's steeper than it needs to be.
The original phone sold 126 million units, so while this will never reach that kind of level of sales it may suit those who want to use a feature phone or have a cheaper alternative phone to take to festivals or as a backup in their bag while away.
New Nokia 3310 price and release date
- Out now in the UK, but not yet in the US or Australia
- Won't work on US mobile networks, so don't try to import it
- Costs £49.99 (around $65, AU$90)
The Nokia 3310 price is £49.99 (around $65, AU$90), placing it perfectly as a secondary phone purchase, and it’s one that will likely appeal to both Nokia fans and festival goers.
Some will balk at having to pay that much for a ‘dumb phone’, especially when similarly spec'd feature phones can be had for almost half the price. There's no question the 3310 name is influencing the price here, and if you're looking for value for money there are better handsets out there.
But for those who simply want to own the new 3310 - and these people do exist - it's still an accessible price tag.
Carphone Warehouse is stocking the Nokia 3310 in the UK for £49.99, but you can only buy it online and some of the most popular color choices are regularly out of stock.
You can also buy it through EE and Vodafone, but we've noticed both networks are out of stock quite often so you may need to shop around for the best choice.
Meanwhile Three and O2 have ruled themselves out for now. It’s only a limited release at the moment though, so it may be some time before you’re able to pick it up.
Those in the US will have to wait longer, as the current version of the Nokia 3310 won’t work with the country’s mobile networks. A release in Australia is still unclear too.
In a rush? Watch our week with review of the new Nokia 3310 below...
Design
- Small and light
- Retro, plastic design
- Doesn't look exactly like the original Nokia 3310 though
Look at the new Nokia 3310 front-on and there’s no mistaking the phone it is paying homage to. This looks like the younger and slightly more attractive sibling of the original Nokia 3310.
The distinctive border around the screen and the layout of the 'num' keys give you the retro throwback, but Nokia has majorly slimmed down and modernized the design, making the new 3310 supremely pocketable.
When you’re carrying this phone around, you won’t even know it’s in your pocket if you’re used to carrying around a smartphone such as the OnePlus 3T. We found it didn’t weigh our pockets down and could even slip in next to our wallet.
It tips the scales at just 79.6g, making it comfortably lighter than the 137g original.
Unlike a lot of modern phones, it’s made of plastic. You may not love this design, but this is one way HMD has been able to keep the price low for the new Nokia 3310.
For Nokia 3310 purists though, the new reboot will be somewhat of a disappointment. We've spoken to many people about the new 3310, and a number said they'd rather HMD had kept the design closer to the original.
We're inclined to agree - it would have been nice for the new handset to follow the original a little more closely in terms of look - but it is a design that remains practical and functional.
See how the new 3310 shapes up against the original in our versus video
Considering it’s plastic construction, it still feels comfortable to hold and it won’t slip out of your hand like some phones made with of can easily do. During our review time we successfully avoided dropping the new Nokia 3310.
It may not be as legendarily sturdy as the original Nokia 3310, but it should be able to take a few more knocks than other phones you can buy in 2017.
In terms of colors, you’ll have the choice of four for the new Nokia 3310. Those are the traditional dark blue – the phone we used for this review – and grey, while there are also new psychedelic yellow and warm red colors.
Both of those new colors are a little closer to the Nokia Lumia phones of recent years, but we prefer the dark blue version of the phone, and it seems we’re not alone, as this appears to be one of the most commonly available shades.
The design of the Nokia 3310 feels freshened up, but we can understand how some people are a little disappointed this phone doesn’t look more like the original.
Display
- Low resolution screen
- It's in color, but doesn't respond to touch
Unlike your modern smartphone, there’s not much room for the display on the new Nokia 3310. Instead it’s banished to the top half of the phone and is only 2.4 inches big.
This time it’s a bright, full color display, but the resolution isn’t particularly impressive at 240 x 320. You’ll particularly notice how low the resolution is when you’re looking at photos.
That’s a bit of a shame considering entry-level smartphones that don't cost all that much more than the 'dumb' 3310 can pack 720p HD displays.
For the basic tasks that you'll want to use this for though, such as texting and calling, you don’t need a super crisp display and the screen on the new 3310 suffices. Needless to say though, you won't be watching any videos on it and gaming is graphically basic.
Also note this isn't a touchscreen, so you won’t be able to tap on the screen to interact with it. You’ll need to navigate around the phone with the button below instead.
Interface and performance
- Intuitive interface, but lack of touchscreen slows things down
- Few apps and slow data speeds
The experience of the Nokia 3310 is limited, but that’s the case on most modern feature phones, and you can do a lot more on this than you would have been able to on the original version of the phone.
There’s no Android software here and Windows 10 Mobile is nowhere to be seen, instead it’s running Nokia’s feature phone OS. That’s Nokia Series 30+, which is a lot more basic than we’re used to on most modern phones.
It comes with a variety of basic apps, folders and functions, including Call Logs, Contacts, Photos, Internet, Messaging, Snake, Mobile Store, My Apps, Camera, Apps and Games, Music, Weather, Radio, Videos, Settings, Notes, Calendar, Calculator, Alarm Clock, Extras, Files, Voice Recorder and Counters.
All of the most popular feature phone apps such as the calculator and voice recorder are here then, but there’s nowhere near the selection you’d expect on a modern phone.
If you’d like to access Instagram on this phone for example, you’ll need to go through the very basic, slow loading internet browser, which can be tedious as you have to navigate and type using physical buttons.
There is an app store where you can download games and apps, but during our time with the phone we found the store only had a small selection of games.
Twitter and Facebook will be launching on that store soon, but it’s safe to assume most of your favorite apps won’t be available on this device, as it’s going to be a pain for the big companies to develop for.
The interface is easy to understand, but as there’s no touchscreen functionality it’s a little bit more difficult to move around compared to iOS and Android devices.
If you’re used to typing out text on a keypad you’ll find this easy to use, but it won’t be comfortable to switch to this from an iPhone or an Android device.
Browsing on the Nokia 3310 can take a long time, but the web browser is still a handy feature, especially given the lack of apps. One day we wanted to access the news from the BBC for example, and that wasn’t too difficult, it was just a case of entering the URL slowly using the keypad.
One disappointing point is the fact the new Nokia 3310 is only 2.5G compatible. That means no 3G or 4G data speeds, resulting in a very basic, sluggish browsing experience.
There’s also no Wi-Fi, so our advice is not to buy this phone if you’re going to be using a lot of internet.
Instead, it’s a nice little touch to be able to get online when you need it most but it won’t be a main focus of the Nokia 3310 experience.
Performance wise we found the new Nokia 3310 to be mediocre at best. Most apps opened with a slight delay, but some of the key apps have no noticeable lag.
For example, Messages opens up immediately, but if you’ve got a bulging inbox on your phone full of messages it slows down a touch.
For gaming, the Nokia 3310 managed to load most titles within a few seconds, but the games aren’t particularly intensive, as you’ll find out in the next section.
Bluetooth is here, so you’ll be able to upload music to your phone and listen to it over the air or plug in a headset with the 3.5mm headphone jack.
You’ll want to use a microSD card though as there’s only 16MB of internal storage space here and that’s not going to let you even store a whole album.
The truth is, if you want to put media of any kind onto this device you will have to buy a microSD card. There’s no getting around this – we only managed to store seven photos on our handset before it started asking us to resort to expandable storage.
Gaming
- Snake is back
- Comes with several other basic games
Snake is back on the new Nokia 3310, but it's had quite an overhaul from the version which graced the original 3310.
Called Snake Xenzia, the new version is made by Gameloft and features a series of levels with various map layouts, as well as the classic survival mode where you get an uninterrupted square to ply your trade.
The snake looks, well, more snake-like, and it's all in color for your visual pleasure. If you jump straight into the game you'll find the controls require you to use just the 4 and 6 keys to direct your creature in a similar fashion to slither.io.
Snake purists needn't fear though, as a quick trip to the game's settings menu allows you to select from four different controller options - with the classic 2, 4, 6, 8 directional controls present.
You can also opt to use the four way navigation pad on the new 3310 if you don't fancy using the number keys, and this makes it slightly easier to manage when playing one-handed.
The navigation pad is small though and you'll need to be accurate (and ideally slender-fingered) to make the most of it.
Snake isn't the only game you can play on the new Nokia 3310 though, with the phone also packing Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Diamond Twister 2, Doodle Jump and Drag Race.
Don't get your hopes up too much, as our quick spin on Asphalt offered up some distinctly retro graphics. It still fun though, and takes you back to the old-school arcade racing games.
Battery life
- Battery life of around a week
- 'Festival proof' on a single charge
- Charges via micro USB
The original Nokia 3310 was known for its long battery life, and there’s good news for those eyeing up the new 3310.
A removable 1,200mAh power pack is an instant upgrade over the 900mAh of the original, and thanks to the improvements in phone efficiency the new Nokia 3310 boasts 22 hours of talk time and up to 31 days of standby.
That’s a huge upgrade over the 2.5 hours of talk time and 260 hours (around 11 days) of standby on the original Nokia 3310. You can charge the new 3310 with a standard micro USB cable too, but the one that comes in the box will only connect to your wall.
Any other micro USB cable you have will also be able to charge this up though, so if you’ve bought any kind of portable tech in the last decade you likely have alternatives.
We found the battery life of the Nokia 3310 to be solid and last for the best part of a week, but you should note it’s not going to give you a whole month from a single charge.
That promise of month-long battery only applies if your phone is idle the whole time. But it should still keep you going a while, especially if this is a festival phone or a secondary device you’re placing in your bag and not using much.
You can put your SIM card into it and know you’ll be able to make a phone call without losing a lot of the battery life. If you’re going to sit on this all the time though it won’t give you as much of a battery boost as you might expect.
One other thing to note is if you buy this phone remember to lock the screen. Most of us are used to letting our phones lock themselves, but you’ll need to manually do that with the new Nokia 3310 or the screen will stay on and you’ll be hemorrhaging charge in no time.
Camera
- 2MP camera isn't up to much
- No selfie snapper
The original Nokia 3310 came out before most phones had a camera on the rear, but for 2017 the company has decided to include one. It’s a rather understated affair though with only a 2MP shooter on the rear of the phone.
There are no top-of-the-range features here either. It’s essentially a simple point-and-shoot camera with digital zoom built in, but you won’t be blown away by any of the photos you can take from this.
It will be useful for the odd shot of information you need to remember or want to just quickly grab, but that’s about all. These photos won’t even be useful for sharing on social media, as the quality is so low.
There’s no video recording on the Nokia 3310 either, so you won’t be able to film your upcoming masterpiece on this device.
Perhaps the biggest missing feature from the new 3310 is the lack of a selfie camera. There’s no way to shoot selfies apart from turning your phone around and using that poor rear camera.
We wouldn’t recommend that, as framing can be a bit of an issue and most of the selfies we took had to be reshot a few times in order to get it done properly.
Camera samples
The return of the Nokia 3310 is fueled by nostalgia. If HMD had revealed this phone as the Nokia 1 there wouldn’t be any hype around the device at all. None. Zero. Zilch.
It's a phone that didn't need to be made. Yet it was, but not for the sole purpose of shifting large volumes. Instead it was a marketing play to get the Nokia name back into the minds of the general public.
There are Android powered Nokia smartphones arriving in the coming weeks, and the 3310 is here to plant the seed before the phones you're more likely to buy show up.
For most, the new 3310 can be seen as the chance to grab a feature phone as your backup device and revel in nostalgia, or to try out something entirely different if you’re new to the feature phone scene.
But some people also want to buy a new feature phone as an upgrade to their existing basic handset. If you’re looking for a phone that’s capable of doing very, very simple tasks and don’t want to be using a touchscreen, why not spend a little extra and get the Nokia 3310?
You can buy other feature phones for less than this, and the new Nokia 3310 doesn't justify the extra outlay over the simple nostalgia card it's playing.
Who’s it for?
This may be seen as a novelty device to some people, and that’s OK. Or you may simply want to pick this up as a handset to last a week or so while you’re away at a festival, so you don't put your Samsung Galaxy S8 at risk.
Indeed, for most people, this will be a fun and affordable device to use alongside their main smartphone. If you’re in need of extended battery life you can just switch your SIM over to this phone and use it while you’re partying at a festival.
But it may also appeal as someone’s main phone if all you really want is the phone part.
Should you buy it?
The fact is, the price of the new Nokia 3310 isn’t as low as it could. If you’re looking for a feature phone and have fond memories of the original 3310 then you may be drawn to the reboot - and you'll likely be happy.
But if you're keeping a keen eye on your finances you can get the same spec (and in some cases better spec) for a lower price tag if you ignore the headline-grabbing "3310" name.
The new Nokia 3310 has the fun nostalgia element, a good design and some much improved features that all combine to form a solid, dependable handset.
First reviewed: May 2017
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