Nokia will re-launch the 3310, perhaps the best-loved and most resilient phone in history.
The phone, originally released in 2000 and in many ways
beginning the modern age of mobiles, will be sold as a way of getting
lots of battery life in a nearly indestructible body.
The new incarnation of the old 3310 will be sold for just
€59, and so likely be pitched as a reliable second phone to people who
fondly remember it the first time around. It will be revealed at Mobile
World Congress later this month, according to leaker Evan Blass who first revealed the details.
It’s still possible to buy the 3310 on Amazon,
though only through its marketplace and not directly from the company
itself. The Amazon listing describes a range of features, including a
clock, calculator, the ability to store up to ten reminders and four
games: Snake II, Pairs II, Space Impact, and Bantumi.
Nokia struggled to bring its brand into the smartphone era
and ended up being sold to Microsoft. But since then it has targeted
success by making new versions of old phones, including the Nokia 215, which costs $29 and lasts for 29 days.
Phones made under the Nokia brand are now sold by HMD
Global, a Finnish company that bought the rights to the name. HMD will
reveal other new mobiles – the Nokia 3, 5 and 6 – at the same MWC event.
Those other new phones wll be more like smartphones, but will retain much of the same low price.
