Last week saw the launch of Nokia’s new incarnation of its classic 3310 mobile phone. The original, which first appeared 17 years ago, was immensely popular – 100m handsets sold – and there is an obvious nostalgic appeal in a cheap retro copy, complete with an updated version of the game Snake.
Axar.az reports quoting the Guardian.
Reviews suggest the £49.99 3310 would make the perfect “festival phone” – meaning, I guess, that if you dropped it into a lake of mud at 3am, you wouldn’t mind too much.
The interest in the 3310 also feels a bit like longing: a wish to return to a simpler time, when a phone was just a phone, when batteries never ran out, and the world – emails, the news, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, every song ever recorded – didn’t come with you when you went somewhere. Back then, if you sat staring at your phone screen on a Tube platform, people thought you were a simpleton; there was nothing to look at. I do not consider myself to be terribly technology-dependent – the most transformative aspect of my smartphone is the fact that wherever I go, I always have a torch with me – but who wouldn’t want to return to that time, if only for a visit? I certainly would. Count me in.
But there’s a problem: while the new 3310 is certainly reminiscent of its predecessor – just a bit flatter and wider, as if someone had taken a rolling pin to it – it has also got a camera and a colour screen. You can listen to music on it, and it offers serviceable, if slow, internet access. It may look the part, but you can’t escape modern life with this impostor. If I was going to travel back in time for a week, I would need an original 3310.
An old handset isn’t too hard to track down – they were very robust, so there are a lot of them still knocking about. You can find used ones on Amazon or eBay, but it turns out someone from the office has a dark grey one sitting in a drawer at home, complete with charger. After a bit of fiddling with an adaptor, I am able to jam the modern sim card from my iPhone into the Nokia’s old-school slot. I push the button and the faint green backlight comes on. I go to bed ready to wake up in the year 2000.
Advertisement
The next day no one rings all morning. At lunchtime, I ask my wife to call me to make sure the old phone actually worked. After a few seconds a shrill cascade of notes tumble out of the phone.
“Hello?” I say.
“Yes?” my wife says.
“Is that you, caller?”
“Can I help you?” The voice is faint – nowhere near as loud as my wife’s actual voice, coming from the next room – but it is there. It sounds like the past.
I see that the phone hasn’t recognised my wife’s number, and I realise I will have to input all my contacts by hand. I manage a total of three (remember having to hit the “7” key four times to produce an “s”?) before I decide it is too labour intensive to bother with the rest. I will just allow myself to be surprised.
No one rings anyway, which I decide is liberating, a feeling that lasts right up until I go to the supermarket in the afternoon. As I wait in the till queue, I automatically reach for my smartphone, and find only my dumbphone. Normally I would kill these few minutes with a little routine: check email, check Twitter, check other email, go back to Twitter and watch a clip of a baby llama someone has linked to. I try to play a few rounds of Snake, but I have forgotten how and have to read the rules. I end up staring into space, bereft.
When I get home I receive my first text, from one of the three contacts I have managed to input. It says: “You keep pocket-dialling me.” I had forgotten that you have to lock old Nokias manually. I have also forgotten how. I try to send an apologetic text – “sorry I’m using a shit phone” – but the primitive predictive text isn’t cooperating. I get as far as “sorry in using a shiv” and give up.
Ironically, I spend a lot of time on the internet trying to figure out how to use my dumbphone, typing in questions such as, “How do I turn off predictive text on 3310?”, “How do I make the call volume louder?” and “How do I win Snake?” A colleague informs me that I need to disable iMessage on my real phone, or else all my Apple friends will be sending me texts I can’t receive. Who knew the simple life could be so complicated?
Here’s something I forgot about life 17 years ago: I used to spend at least an extra hour a day in front of my computer screen, because it was the only way I could access stuff. When was the last time you said: “I can’t go out right now, I’m waiting for an email”?
Here’s something else I forgot: in the year 2000, the idea of the mobile as a universally acceptable accessory was fairly new. We were not long past the era when people called you a twat for answering your phone on a train. As late as 2008 I wrote an article accusing Madonna of being some kind of monster because she had admitted she took her Blackberry to bed with her. When the 3310 first appeared, sending a text instead of leaving a polite voicemail still seemed a bit gauche, like faxing a letter of condolence. I’m not even sure I knew how to send a text in 2000.
Midweek, I have an appointment in central London. I need: a scrap of a paper with the number of the person I am meeting written on it, a hard copy of the email conveying details of the event I am attending, a printed Google map of the environs and something to read on the Tube. I do not need: headphones, a charger or knowledge of Donald Trump’s latest tweet. I look at the Nokia and I think: to be honest, I’m not even sure I need you.
At the event, however, I proudly show everyone my 3310.
“Does it have Snake?” asks one person.
“How long does the battery last?” asks another.
On the train home I try to play a bit of Snake. It is not the classic phone game I remember, but a deeply irritating way to pass time. The screen feels small, and my thumbs huge. When I lose, which is every few seconds, the phone gives out a loud, disappointed chirp, alerting everyone else in the carriage of my failure. “Game over!” says the screen. “Your score: 0”.
By the end of the week I have mastered as much of the old 3310 as I have use for. When it rings, I deftly press the call button and the asterisk in quick succession to unlock it. I glance at the mystery number on the screen, and answer. “Hello?” I say, tentatively. “Hey! How are you?” People think I’m really excited to hear from them, when I’m just immensely relieved they’re not someone else. If I miss a call and no message follows, I know someone is probably sending a follow-up email I will not see for hours. But who cares?
On the day I remove the sim card, the Nokia still has another week of battery life left, and my iPhone, I discover, has a week’s worth of unacknowledged WhatsApp messages waiting for me. I realise you can’t go back to the past, because almost everyone else you know is still plugged into the present, staring down at their screens, engrossed in their own worlds, thinking: why has he not yet replied to my emoji with another emoji? Within minutes I have rejoined them. A few minutes later, my phone needs recharging.
