Chart of every Nokia dumbphone from 1982-2006

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/16/chart-of-every-nokia-dumbphone.html

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What are the dates? It puts my 1100 in 2005, but I’ve been using it since October 2004.

Might they be US release dates, rather than those applicable here in the EU?

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I doubt it, the prices are in pounds.

Dumb phones are starting to look better and better since police of every kind decided it’s just fine to rummage around in your stuff.

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Actual conversation at work:

Employee A: What kind of phone do you have?

Employee B: I don’t know… I think it’s a Samsung Galaxy S.

Employee A: Which one?

Employee B: Just an S.

Employee a: When do you have to return that to the Smithsonian?

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It doesn’t seem to have the last one I owned which was a Nokia 6303 classic, which does the ‘phone’ thing as well as any device I’ve since seen or heard tell off. I see it only came out in 2009, well into the era of smartphones. Ah well.

I’m considering pairing my smartphone (which is a Cat S60 because with me it’s not if I’ll drop my phone, but when) with one of the big, dumb, indestructible bricks Cat makes.

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Missed that - thanks.

It’s just wrong, then. Reuters also say it was designed in 2002 and released 2003, which makes more sense given that I bought mine in 2004, and wouldn’t have chosen the ‘latest shiny’.

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I still use a dumbphone every day and still press 7 four times for a ‘s’. And I’m still missing my 8210 (8290 in north america?) as it was the sexiest phone ever made! The user interface was superb with the 6 perfectly arranged buttons, and remember the indefinite number of fancy xpress-on covers for it?
I don’t understand why they’re not remaking this instead of the 3310…

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I had one of the models (ca. 2002) with a fake pull-out antenna that was just a marketing gimmick to convince the customers who didn’t believe a phone without a visible antenna would have good reception.

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I’m just traveling with 2 empty cans and some string [approx. 3 meters], safety is the best policy.

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Errr yeah…it still does actually. Or am i missing something?

The nokia 7280 looks interesting. Is it as awkward to use as it looks?

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Same here. My dumb phone is going strong, I still text with it, and I don’t use the “predictive” mode as it guesses so poorly… I type letter by letter and that suits me just fine.

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Strange that Trinity used an 8110, given that the battery management was rubbish.

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This thing illustrates pretty well the actual systemic sickness that caused the downfall of Nokia. I lived in Finland throughout that period and worked very closely with guys from Nokia. People here still tend to blame Elop and iPhone and lack of Andorid phones for Nokia’s death. But actually it was lack of product vision.

I remember walking in Nokia’s flagship store here in downtown Helsinki in period from around 2000 to 2007. Walls were covered with loads and loads of different models of their phones. Really it was hundreds of different models. I mean they all did the same things. They were essentially good only for actually making phone calls and sending text messages but still Nokia had a huger range of models in different price points and whatnot. All named with cryptic four digit codes. Differences were minuscule. Actually not even people working in stores could explain you the difference between two models beyond minor stylistic changes… People didn’t know how to pick a right model for them. I mean when iPhone come out it was THE ONE phone to have, the one phone to want. In addition it looked radically different than anything before it.

Nokia was on top when fabled 3210 was THE ONE phone to have. I mean even than they had multiple phones on offer, but focus was on that one. Sometime after they just dropped the ball.

iPhone and Elop just put nails in coffin.

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Ah, the 8290 - that was one of my favorite ones too. So small, I used to joke when using it, one had to be careful not to swallow it.

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I agree for a big part with you, to many models.
You are forgetting though they where also busy with other products, maybe up front of the market. Wonderful thingies, but I’m afraid the target audience was to small. People who where interested in being (nearly always) on line, play with devices and code. :wink:
They made a mistake over there also, but not about being late or such. Maybe in not understanding customers.
I gave the 770 (2005) away, but here a pic of the successors. (N800, N810)

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Loved my N800 & N900.

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The text used for those text-message-sending competitions:

“The Razor-toothed piranhas of the genera serrasalmus and pygocentrues are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.”

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I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t miss these things. I get the concerns about privacy and security with smartphones, but I do NOT miss hitting 7 four times to type the letter s. I never developed any proficiency at texting that way, so I really never texted much. I hated texting back then. Now I hate talking on the phone. I’d much rather text. Or use a messenger app. Ok, so maybe the NSA and the Russians and some scammer in China are intercepting all my messages. I’m still not going back to a dumb phone.

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Definitely not every model. My Nokia 100 is missing from the list, too (although it’s not THAT different from the 101).

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Used to have an n73. Had more uses for it than texting and phoning.