Ode to thee thy Nokia 3310.
Written: Apr 08 '02 (Updated Apr 08 '02)
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Pros: Slinky, yet strong. More functions than you can poke a stick at.
Cons: Zilch!
The Bottom Line: The Nokia 3310 is by far the best phone I've owned thus far. It's durability and sexiness is of the highest order!
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| joecooper's Full Review: Nokia 3310 GSM Cellular Phone |
There comes a time in a young man’s life when he must review his cell phone.
I was on the cell phone wave back when it first started. It was Alex Bell and I with our ginormous car battery-size contraptions that had to be lugged around with a reinforced shoulder strap. If you could carry it around for a day without putting it down you were automatically accepted into your particular country’s Olympic weightlifting team. Ah, those were the days when men were men, and cell phones were real cell phones.
After the back hernia, and several leaps in cell phone technology, I found myself with a quick succession of phones made by just about every manufacturer known to man – Motorola, Siemens, Mitsubishi, Ericsson – you name it I’ve spoken on it. However, of them all, I would have to say without a shadow of a doubt that Nokia has served my cellular needs the best.
Nokia, O’ Nokia!
Upon which I speak,
You’re mostly blue and silver,
Sexy, small, and sleek.
I’ll spare you the remainder of my poem.
My latest Nokia is the 3310. I’ve been waffling on this little gem for over a year now. My reason for choosing it was this – I wanted a sturdy phone that wouldn’t break, but which was also sleek and sexy enough not to be an embarrassment in front of my mates. The 3310 fits the bill. It also has an amazing array of functions – a wildly lucky coincidence considering I didn’t look into it at the time of purchase.
Size and shape
I have a ruler, and I’m giving the phone the once over like Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served.
Length – 11 cm or 4.33 inches.
Width – 4.8 cm or 1.8 inches
Depth – 2 cm or 0.78 inches
It wouldn’t let me measure its inside leg, but, as you can see, it’s a slinky little phone. It slips easily into the front pocket of my jeans without a drama, and that’s really saying something!
Durability
Being a young rough and tough John Wayne type, I need a rough and tough John Wayne of a phone. I’ve snapped off more flip-out mouthpieces in the past than I’ve had hot breakfasts. I’m also the current world record holder for the number of aerials bent. Therefore, the Nokia 3310 is the perfect phone for me. It does not have an external aerial or any flip-out mouthpiece. It’s nice and compact with nothing sticking out to break.
Functions
The Nokia 3310 is an electronic Swiss army knife. It’s a technophobe’s nightmare! However, don’t despair! Of the thousands of weird and wonderful features contained within the Nokia 3310, I have to confess that I use but three of them. I make calls, I receive calls, and I fiddle about with SMS messages. I’ve found it quite easy to ignore the many other functions.
Now it’s the tech-heads’ turn not to despair! I’m going to take a jaunt (with the aid of the owner’s guide) through the many features that make the Nokia 3310 the next best thing to a Star Trek phazer. Who knows?! Perhaps I’ll learn something along the way.
Phone book
Who needs paper when your Nokia 3310 can store all of your phone numbers for you, huh?! With what looks like not a lot of trouble, you can enter your phone numbers in, assign a name, set it up for speed dialing, and even attach a voice tag. Sounds very groovy. I might enter the twenty-first century and start using this function.
Call register
This looks useful. As well as being able to track missed calls, you can weave such digital magic as keeping track of call durations and cost. It even allows you to preprogram a call cost limit. A tightwad miser like myself could use this…
Funky tones
The Nokia 3310 has a bunch of different tones that you can use as your ring. It’s the usual collection of old favorites, including the Yellow Rose of Texas. But! But! Here’s where it gets good. There’s room to add your own ‘personalised’ ring tones, including the latest or greatest rock, punk, R&B, indie, jazz, blues, hiphop, rap, metal, thrash, classical, country or bluegrass hits. You can download them to your phone. I had my ex-girlfriend do it for me. I’ve currently got AC/DC’s “Back In Black” beeping as my ringer. Beeping as my ringer?? Anyway, the Nokia 3310 is very hip, and very now, kids!
Security
Security! Security! Will someone please call security and have them escort this man from the website!
It’s a sad, sad fact of life that sometimes cell phones get stolen. It’s poor manners, but it does happen. Accordingly, the good people at Nokia have trained the 3310 to escape from the clutches of thieves, buy itself a bus ticket, and make its way home to you. Ok, they haven’t, but what they have done to the 3310 is almost as good.
Firstly, you can set things up so that you have to enter a PIN to operate the phone. For example, my PIN is… You grabbed a pencil, didn’t you?! Secondly, the 3310 has a call barring device to prevent thieves ringing saucy offshore phone sex services in order to bankrupt you as they get off.
Games!
The Nokia 3310 is not quite the Playstation IV, but it does have four little games to play – Snake II, Space Impact, Bantumi, and Pairs II.
I told a pork pie earlier in the review, when I said that I only use the phone for three things. I have actually played a couple of the games. Boredom at the train station is to blame. Snake II is an addictive yet simple game where you slither around the screen eating things to get bigger, but without eating your own tail (as sometimes happens!). Space Impact, is a side-scrolling (got that term from the Games reviewers) number where you fly a little spaceship along shooting at the oncoming alien hordes. As for the remaining two games..pfft! I couldn’t tell you. Far too confusing for me.
A brief list of just some of the other functions
Looking here in the owner’s guide, there are two full pages in small print listing all the marvels of the Nokia 3310. I’m not going to regurgitate them all, but I will briefly list a few of the more useful functions. Ready Eddie?
- Clock
- Alarm
- Stopwatch
- Countdown timer
- Calculator (Alligator!)
- Reminders (think post-it notes)
- Screensaver
- All the SMS functions you could ever drrrrrream of!
- Chat (I haven’t a clue, so don’t ask)
- Light
- Vibrating alert
- Call waiting
- Call divert
If it can take the rubbish out every Tuesday night, then I’m out of business!
Joe’s final word
There we have it. A complete and exhaustive look at the Nokia 3310. I’m sure it does everything that you could wish it to do. However, for me it still comes back to being a slinky little phone that I can’t break. It’s been over a year and it’s still going strong!
Is that my phone?
Cheers for reading!
~Joe
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): on a plan.
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Epinions.com ID:
joecooper
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Reviews written: 120
Trusted by: 57 members
About Me:
Aging whippersnapper and freelance journo.
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