I'm glad that HMD Global is resurrecting Nokia branded mobile phones. However, I'm disappointed in the "new" 2017 edition of the Nokia 3310. It's still a traditional GSM (2G/2.5G) phone. That's a problem. Around the world, carriers are progressively shutting down their older GSM networks or already have. Some countries, such as Japan and Korea, never adopted GSM. Singapore will shut down all its GSM networks within a couple months. AT&T has shut down its GSM network in the United States, leaving only T-Mobile with a "skeleton" 1900 MHz GSM network that has significant coverage limitations. Australia's last 2G/2.5G networks will shut down later this year.
In Europe it's possible that mobile carriers will shut down their 3G networks before they shut down their "skeleton" 2G/2.5G networks, but 3G phones can also connect to 2G/2.5G networks.
Nokia had many 3G feature phones, both before and during Microsoft's brief, disastrous stewardship of the brand. In fact, Nokia's 3G phones date all the way back to 2002. Nokia offered a truly global 3G phone as early as 2004.
There is still a market for feature phones, but they really need to function as phones. A 2G/2.5G feature phone in 2017 just isn't even a phone, sorry to say. I'd like to see HMD Global introduce (or reintroduce) a genuinely global 3G feature phone. There are a few directions HMD Global could choose. One approach would be to reintroduce something very much like the Nokia X3-02 but with one major improvement: a capacitive touchscreen. The X3-02 was the smallest 3G feature phone Nokia ever made (and probably the smallest anyone ever made), a miniature marvel. Its resistive touchscreen was troublesome, however. The Nokia 302 of similar vintage had no touchscreen at all, so another possibility is to update the X3-02 to make do without one. Yet another option is to reintroduce the Nokia 311 (or something very much like it) with a long-term supported and security patched Android software base. I think there's a market for a truly tiny, well supported Android-based phone, and the Nokia 311 form factor with modest, battery efficient internals would occupy that niche well.
One problem HMD Global seems to have is that, to date, there haven't been any MediaTek S30+ phones that support 3G. Maybe the S30+ software platform simply cannot support 3G yet, unlike Nokia's prior but more capable S40 platform that supported both 3G and Wi-Fi. And maybe HMD Global doesn't have rights to the S40 platform. Whatever the reasons, HMD Global still has some work to do to recover at least a part of Nokia's past glory. Nostalgia is terrific in certain ways, but the "new" Nokia 3310 is only bad nostalgia.
In Europe it's possible that mobile carriers will shut down their 3G networks before they shut down their "skeleton" 2G/2.5G networks, but 3G phones can also connect to 2G/2.5G networks.
Nokia had many 3G feature phones, both before and during Microsoft's brief, disastrous stewardship of the brand. In fact, Nokia's 3G phones date all the way back to 2002. Nokia offered a truly global 3G phone as early as 2004.
There is still a market for feature phones, but they really need to function as phones. A 2G/2.5G feature phone in 2017 just isn't even a phone, sorry to say. I'd like to see HMD Global introduce (or reintroduce) a genuinely global 3G feature phone. There are a few directions HMD Global could choose. One approach would be to reintroduce something very much like the Nokia X3-02 but with one major improvement: a capacitive touchscreen. The X3-02 was the smallest 3G feature phone Nokia ever made (and probably the smallest anyone ever made), a miniature marvel. Its resistive touchscreen was troublesome, however. The Nokia 302 of similar vintage had no touchscreen at all, so another possibility is to update the X3-02 to make do without one. Yet another option is to reintroduce the Nokia 311 (or something very much like it) with a long-term supported and security patched Android software base. I think there's a market for a truly tiny, well supported Android-based phone, and the Nokia 311 form factor with modest, battery efficient internals would occupy that niche well.
One problem HMD Global seems to have is that, to date, there haven't been any MediaTek S30+ phones that support 3G. Maybe the S30+ software platform simply cannot support 3G yet, unlike Nokia's prior but more capable S40 platform that supported both 3G and Wi-Fi. And maybe HMD Global doesn't have rights to the S40 platform. Whatever the reasons, HMD Global still has some work to do to recover at least a part of Nokia's past glory. Nostalgia is terrific in certain ways, but the "new" Nokia 3310 is only bad nostalgia.
