Ahhhh, the Nokia 3310.
A mobile device launched in September 2000 by the Finnish multinational communications
company which was then leading the scene.
The device was an evolution of their earlier phones, in particular the Nokia 5110.
It wasn't the first Nokia to lose it's aerial, but it did offer the same levels of durability
as their 1998 handset, something I found the 1999 3210 model lacked.
This was an era of Pay as you Talk and yearly phone contracts so releasing several new models
every year was almost obligatory.
To that end the Nokia 3330 was released just a few months after the 3310 and remains a
lesser known model.
Along with all the 3310 features, the 3330 came as standard in a lighter case and included
a new pinball game called "Bumper", and animated screen savers.
However, the standout feature was WAP capability.
This was the reason I obtained my model in 2001, and it remains one of my favourite handsets
to this day.
Internet browsing functionality was pretty limited, and other than sneaking the odd pub
quiz answer or looking up a taxi number, I didn't use this powerful technology a great
deal.
But give the recent announcement of a Nokia 3310 relaunch, it seems like a good time to
revisit this dependable unit and see what it can do today.
So I thought the best way to go about this was if we get the Big tomale out of the way
first, and then after that we'll have a look at the phone in general.
That should save those who are less interested having to skip through the video.
Now, setting this up, took a while.
The 3330 uses a very outdated method of internet connection.
I'm using an O2 sim card here, but I actually ended up connecting to Vodafone's WAP portal.
The reason for that is because the phone actually dials a number, in the same fashion as dial
up back in the 90s.
In fact if you dial the number you hear the familiar connection tone.
Once it's dialled, the Nokia then accesses the data using a Circuit Switched Data connection,
allowing fairly quick access of a whopping 9.6kbits per second.
Because of this configuration quirk, you can just dial an alternative service provider
to get access.
Now back in the day using the connection of your tariff provider would yield cheaper access
costs, but nowdays, that's just not the case, and you pay a standard mobile connection charge.
It's times like this when you start to appreciate the wonders of mobile data and Wi-Fi.
I was actually surprised Vodafone's dial up was still active.
I imagine it's a rusty old modem sitting in a corner that they've simply forgotten about.
So after entering a plethora of settings, connection was established.
The next problem is finding a Wireless Markup Language compatible site that the phone's
ancient proprietary browser can interact with.
Most modern servers will tell you where to go, but old favourites like wap.google.com
still support these old protocols, and this is what we're presented with.
Now, this might not appear incredibly exciting.
But to me, it really was.
Just seeing that little globe in the top right of the screen brought back a tonne of memories
alone, and then, there we have it - Google.com, presented in all it's early WAP glory.
Some links refuse to work, but others, such as image search, surprisingly do.
You don't get any images, but you do get a few suggestions, and a few other links to
click through.
In fact I spend so long clicking about here that my battery died.
Come on, this is a phone with up to a 245 hour standby time!
Now I couldn't find many other WML sites worthy of exploration, so I decided to make my own
and popped it on nostalgianerd.com.
So here it is.
A welcome page.
A page with a picture of me, and of course, no Nostalgia Nerd site would be complete without
a gratuitous shot of a ZX Spectrum...
I've popped the link for that below if you fancy a gander.
Although some browsers will require an XML plug-in to read it.
So as you can see, this early attempt at mobile internet was somewhat limited.
It was of course monochrome, it wasn't the fastest.
But it was functional.
It was helpful and it was definitely a sign of things to come.
This is what Nokia were good at, and it's not the only feature in this phone which I
loved at the time.
Let's take a quick look round.
Construction
Like the 3310, these are sturdy little devices, designed to weather the torments of time.
In my possession I have a standard coloured model and a light blue Orange variant.
You can see the Orange model has an introductory animation, whereas this one has a custom intro
apparently setup by a lass by the name of Corrie, probably some 15 years ago.
Corrie, if you're watching.
Well done.
The 3330 also allowed animated screen savers.
Enough to provide hours of entertainment in the pub when you'd run out of money for the
fruit machines.
Ringtones
I can think of nothing more nostalgic than some soothing old ringtones.
Ffffffffft, they're a bit harsher than I remember.
There are some 35 tones built in as standard and this particular handset even had a few
downloaded custom tones.
See if you can recognise the tune.
Yes.
It's Looney Tunes.
Not a bad rendition I might add.
Once you get fed up of the tones, you can just slip it onto silent mode and be done
with it.
Games
The 3330 really upped the game with it's games.
We had the classics such as Snake 2, which I still feel isn't up to the first game.
But also, Space Impact AND Bumper tables.
A frickin' PINBALL game.
And it's not half bad I might add, and there's certainly less screen blur than say an original
Game Boy.
Texting
SMS was where it was at in the early noughties, and this phone had it covered.
Not only do we have picture messaging, but we have a chat feature.
Now this offered an early version of the kind of chat bubbles we're used to today.
Allowing for a more flowing text message conversation.
We know where you got your ideas Apple.
Additionally, this phone could handle messages at a whopping 459 characters in length, by
threading 3 separate ones together.
Smashing that original 160 character limit.
The very same limit that Twitter is indeed founded on.
I beleive this was also the first Nokia to take the phonebook away from the SIM card,
and the phone memory kindly provides an additional 100 space slot.
Allowing a whopping 200 contacts to be stored.
This was of course well before Facebook friend lists, when 200 contacts was deemed excessively
ample for all your acquaintances.
Or at least, the ones you ever wanted to contact.
Depending on your provider, you can also receive news text messages and other information.
A method which is still used in many third world countries for primitive internet access.
So there we go, that's the Nokia 3310's slightly younger sibling, the 3330, in all it's glory.
I can certainly see the appeal of a new model entering the market.
But the main draw for me is the simplicity of this model.
It offers entertainment, customisation, limited internet access if you know the right websites
and it just feels liberating compared to our cumbersome, technology packed smart phones
of today.
You won't be able to take pictures or watch Techmoan on Youtube, but it might just give
you room to breathe, to think, and to get a few games of Snake in before the real world
comes all flooding back to you.