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  • The Nokia three-three-one-zero, or 3310,

  • long regarded as 'the indestructible cell phone'

  • (at least, as far as a lot of the Internet is concerned).

  • It's one of those devices that's earned a die-hard cult following

  • through memes, social media, and imageboards

  • to the point where it's become this sort of

  • legendary piece of tech, representative of everything tough

  • and long-lasting.

  • It's a trait that is especially notable in the modern world

  • of disposable smartphones which are high in power

  • but often low in durability and lasting appeal.

  • With a smartphone, so often if the owner doesn't get bored with it first,

  • it's the phone itself giving up the ghost, sometimes in spectacular fashion.

  • But was the Nokia 3310 really all it was cracked up to be?

  • What led to it becoming such a symbol of robust mobile tech,

  • to the point where Nokia and HMB Global reintroduced

  • the 3310 as a brand new feature phone in 2017?

  • I was curious about this because, personally, I never owned one,

  • and I didn't know anybody that did back in the day either.

  • When the 3310 was introduced in the year 2000, the few folks I knew with a cell phone

  • had something like the Nokia 5100 series.

  • These were the phones that introduced me to things like

  • colored faceplates, SMS text messaging, and of course the game Snake.

  • And my goodness, they could take a beating!

  • I remember a friend of mine accidentally dropped theirs out the window

  • of a moving car while driving 55 on the highway, only to go back

  • and find it on the side of the road completely intact.

  • In my mind, that phone is the one I think of when I think of classic and durable Nokia mobile devices.

  • Fast-forward a decade or so though, and I started seeing endless images

  • regarding the 3310 - a model of phone I'd never seen in person.

  • So, I looked up the sales numbers, and there's no doubt it was popular,

  • selling over 126 million units worldwide.

  • But it's not even in the top ten best sellers, coming in at number twelve or so.

  • As I looked at this list, I got to wondering - why isn't the Nokia 1100

  • the subject of all those memes?

  • I remember seeing them all over the place, sold through companies like TracPhone,

  • and it's the number one mobile handset of all time in terms of worldwide sales numbers alone.

  • And so, I bought one of each, and when comparing them side-by-side,

  • the 1100 seems to be just as well built a phone as the 3310.

  • Even though they were released a few years apart, their feature sets are

  • mighty similar, including many of the same exact applications, games, and technical abilities.

  • The 1100 even has a bit of a leg up in terms of things like resolution

  • and worldwide network availability,

  • which led to them being a mainstay of contractless and low-cost service providers until at least 2009

  • while the 3310 series only stuck around until 2005.

  • Furthermore, one of the very first 'indestructible Nokia' memes from 2011

  • actually shows the 1100 instead of the 3310!

  • And finally, it turns out that there's one big reason I may have missed out on the 3310

  • back in the day - it wasn't actually sold in the United States, and it didn't even work on our networks at all.

  • It wasn't until the later 3390 model that I've been showing here

  • that Americans got their own flavor of the 3310,

  • and by then many people were using other Nokia mobiles instead.

  • That's not to say that this phone was rare in the US or anything like that - far from it - but

  • I found it an important piece of the puzzle that the 3310 was a bit of a bigger deal internationally.

  • Regardless of my own inexcusable American ignorance though, the 3310 has

  • nonetheless achieved serious worldwide recognition in recent years,

  • and it makes sense. Whether or not you were familiar with the exact phone model,

  • most everyone of a certain age had some experience with a Nokia phone

  • that looked pretty similar. They all shared the same design language,

  • they almost always had games like Snake on them, and tons of us have at least one

  • memory or story of a Nokia phone stubbornly holding together in the face of destruction.

  • Whether it's being flushed down a toilet, falling off the roof of a building,

  • or stopping a freakin' bullet, there's no shortage of stories of Nokia phones surviving absurd odds.

  • And their bulletproof build quality became a point of pride for Nokia's home country of Finland,

  • and the 3310 in particular even got its own exclusive Emoji there in 2015,

  • called appropriately enough, 'The Unbreakable".

  • And even though I never used one back when it was new, I can absolutely see the appeal.

  • The 3300 series feels like holding a bar of soap with the density of a brick,

  • yet it remains pleasant to use, with better buttons than the 1100

  • and some other similar phones of its day I've used.

  • This thing is a time capsule of the early 2000's, bringing to mind a more innocent era

  • when even basic consumer electronics were still thrilling.

  • Even if these things were relatively cheap and plentiful, you could do things

  • like play Snake and create your own ringtones with the built in editor - how cool is that?

  • radical Nokia solo

  • This was also the time when phones were starting to get online using Wireless Access Protocol browsers.

  • Ah man, WAP optimized websites - now that brings back memories of countless shady ringtone downloads.

  • And that's really what all this comes down to - collective memories, and a hefty dosage of nostalgia.

  • Even if the 3310 is not the exact Nokia phone you had back in the day,

  • it kind of doesn't matter.

  • Maybe it's not the best selling, the most fully featured, or even the most robust of early 2000's handsets,

  • but it represents all of those things in one concise package.

  • The 3310 is a lot like the floppy disk in pop culture these days - more of a symbol than it is an absolute truth.

  • Floppy disks are the international icon of saving despite their relative unreliability,

  • and the 3310 is the international symbol of indestructible tech, despite there being better selling

  • Nokia phones that could fit the bill.

  • And, if nothing else, it's a fascinating thing to see a modern remake of a classic device

  • which arguably wouldn't have happened without anonymous Internet users spreading a bunch of

  • memes perpetuating a single idea.

  • Whether or not the 2017 model of the 3310 turns into anything memorable is yet to be seen,

  • and personally I have my doubts, but regardless - the original 3310 phone

  • is one for the history books, and will no doubt remain the symbol of indestructibility

  • in our collective consciousness for years to come.

  • And if you enjoyed this video on this topic, perhaps you'd like to see some other related ones that I've done

  • and I'm always doing new videos every Monday and Friday here on LGR, so stay tuned if you like.

  • Thank you very much for watching.

The Nokia three-three-one-zero, or 3310,

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