Nokia 3310

The Nokia 3310 is a GSM mobile phone announced on 1 September 2000, and released in the fourth quarter of the year, replacing the popular Nokia 3210. It sold very well, being one of the most successful phones with 126 million units sold worldwide, and being one of Nokia's most iconic devices. The phone is still widely acclaimed and has gained a cult status due to its extreme durability. Several variants of the 3310 have been released, including the Nokia 3315, 3320, 3330, 3350, 3360, 3390 and 3395. The Nokia 3310 was produced at factories in Finland and Hungary. The 3315s were produced in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific market. A new mobile phone based on the iconic 3310 design was launched in 2017. The new Nokia 3310 model comes with a comprehensive update over its predecessor with a 2.4" color display, a 2MP rear camera and a microSD slot. The 3310 was developed at the Copenhagen Nokia site in Denmark and unveiled at the "Don't be bored. Be totally board." lifestyle event in Oberhausen, Germany, as well as "Nokia Unplugged" concerts in the Asia-Pacific region. It is a compact and sturdy phone featuring an 84 × 48 pixel pure monochrome display. It has a lighter removable 115 g (4.1 oz) battery variant which has fewer features; for example the 133 g (4.6 oz) battery version has the start-up image of two hands touching while the 115 g (4.05 oz) version does not. It is a slightly rounded rectangular unit that is typically held in the palm of a hand, with the buttons operated with the thumb. The blue button is the main button for selecting options, with "C" button as a "backspace", "back" or "undo" button. Up and down buttons are used for navigation purposes. The on/off/profile button is a stiff black button located on the top of the phone. Like its predecessor Nokia 3210, the 3310 was marketed as a customizable consumer-oriented handset targeting the youth. It is about a centimeter shorter than the 3210. The 3310 is known for being reasonably durable due to its casing and construction, a feature which is often humorously exaggerated in online communities. Numerous videos also exist of the phone being put through increasingly-severe damage tests to test the phone's strength, including being dropped from a great height (sometimes while being protected with makeshift cases made from various objects), being crushed by heavy objects or being struck by vehicles or hammers, many times of which the phone proved its record. The 3310's reputation for durability led HMD Global to develop the Nokia 800 Tough with MIL-STD-810G standard compliance in mind. he Nokia 3310's main new feature introduced over its predecessors was a Chat function. This is an instant messaging-like feature that works on standard SMS. The 3310 was popular for SMS text messaging because of Chat and also because it allowed long messages three times the size of a standard SMS text message, at 459 characters. It also featured threaded SMS writing and voice dialing for the quick dialing of selected numbers. The 3310 is known for having many features that were rare for the time. These include many utilities, such as a calculator, Nokia network monitor, stop watch and a reminder function. It has four games: Pairs II, Space Impact, Bantumi, and the hugely popular Snake II. The Snake series of games had been popular on Nokia handsets since the late 1990s. CNET remembered Space Impact, a shoot 'em up in which the player fires projectiles at oncoming aliens, as a mediocre game overall but impressive for fitting a mobile device with its complexity and length. It was later recreated for other mobile devices. The Nokia 3310 runs on Nokia's proprietary Series 20 software. The Nokia 3310 uses a MiniSIM (more commonly known as a standard SIM). The Nokia 3310 can be customized with interchangeable Xpress-On covers, and thousands of different designs have been produced by various companies. It also has over 35 ringtones built-in with space for seven custom tones. These can either be downloaded, or composed by the user on the handset. The phone has various "profiles" that can set a number of preferences such as silent mode where the phone will not ring, useful for situations where it is inappropriate to do so. Screensavers can be made from received picture messages.