I worked for Nokia Networks (the cell tower/voice switching side) for 6 years. In Europe, turning off 2G GSM would be like turning off landlines. It’s used in so many fields (industry, science, metering, even emergency) that it will run up to 2020s and even then 1.8Ghz will still work (you will just be unable to buy new 2G sim cards).
Nokia 3310s were also not “world phones”. Hardly any european-sold phone would roam properly in pre-iPhone USA and vice versa. However, these feature phones have a modular radio unit, so it’s not fixed in stone - it’s mostly a matter of price and market.
Apart from that, rehashing a beloved old brand is not uncommon. Car manufacturers do it all the time: FIAT 500, Piaggio Vespa, Volkswagen Beetle - they were successfully rebooted after their run had long ended. The commonality was an emphasis on very recognizable designs harking back to their roots. It’s a bit more difficult with the the 3310 because its design is not incredibly different from a million other “candybar” phones, so they targeted its famed reliability instead; a month of standby time is pretty impressive (or at least it is to me, forced to charge an iphone every day multiple times a day). I could see my mom buying this.
I am highly skeptical of this thing’s quality. I want to believe, but I will not add to its hype until I know if they retained the original’s ability ffor the case to absorbe basically all the damage with the internals being great.
Yeah, I was talking from a western-market perspective the classic Vespa was also still going strong in India, but here it had been all but discontinued. My dad had to pay good money to get his last PX (about 20 years ago, if i remember correctly), because Piaggio basically said they wouldn’t bother shipping it back to Italy unless it was one the most powerful models. Or at least this was his excuse
Welcome back 3310! (Although it’s actually just a 3310-inspired phone. A bit like the New Mini and New Golf cars.)
But for people who want simplicity without retro, the world has moved on… There are a handful of handsets now available which offer a totally cut-back, minimalist product: a phone that is a phone. For people to use when they feel like a break from their attention-seeking smartphone, or perhaps with no smartphone at all – just a tablet or laptop. These new phones are brand new designs made in smaller production runs, so they’re not cheap. But in their elegant minimalism they are genuinely devices that constitute a response to the power-hungry smartphones. (Power-hungry in two senses: electricity, and power over their owner…)
These new phones are taking simplicity all the way.
NPR ATC just ran a story about this and they played a ringtone which is I guess the one from the 3310. It sounds so familiar but I can’t place it … was it in one of the Jurassic Park movies, inside a dinosaur after it ate the person holding the phone?
EDIT: never mind, wrong ringtone, that wasn’t the one in JP, but it’s still reminding me of a horror movie.
the classic Vespa was also still going strong in India, but here it had been all but discontinued. My dad had to pay good money to get his last PX (about 20 years ago, if i remember correctly), because Piaggio basically said they wouldn’t bother shipping it back to Italy unless it was one the most powerful models. Or at least this was his excuse 
