- HMD’s suspected replica of the vintage Nokia 3210 is now fully exposed.
- The original 3210 is one of the best-selling phones of all time.
- Remake contains homage to original design with modern elements such as a camera.
HMD may have recently introduced its own mid-range smartphones, but that does not mean it is abandoning the Nokia nostalgia business – quite the contrary, as a new leak has thoroughly disclosed the impending relaunch of one of Nokia’s most popular phones.
The Nokia 3210 was introduced in 1999 and quickly became recognized as the’mobile’ that almost everyone owned. HMD recently suggested on X (previously Twitter) that it will be resurrecting a Nokia classic shortly, and according to Finnish shop Giganti (via NokiaMob), it will be a recreation of the 3210.
The new Nokia 3210, which appears to be a little more colorful than the practical grey dumbphone we remember, is expected to be officially introduced on May 8 (with an on-sale date of May 15). The design isn’t a perfect duplicate; there are parallels in the button layout, but it’s probably closer to a Nokia 3310 from the early 2000s.
Still, we enjoy the cyan and yellow color options, and the ‘new’ Nokia 3210 has a few more modern functions to make it feel less like a relic from another era. The rumored specifications include a 2.4-inch QVGA color screen (a modest advance from the original’s 1.5-inch monochrome display) and a rear-facing 2MP f/2.8 camera capable of shooting 720p video.
These features, together with the addition of 4G connectivity, suggest that the 3210’s battery life will not be as impressive as the original’s. However, a 1,450 mAh battery should last for days, and a separate teaser from HMD has confirmed that the phone will, of course, include Snake.
According to the Giganti leak, the phone’s price should be delightfully retro, with it likely to cost ₹7980.07 (approximately $95 / ₹7967.69 / AU$145) when it hits shelves on May 15 – though we may have to wait until the official launch to find out where it will be sold.
Why was the Nokia 3210 so popular?
This isn’t the first time HMD has resurrected a beloved Nokia classic (it just announced a trio of tributes to 2000s-era candybar phones), but the Nokia 3210 stands out for those who remember it.
The remarkably indestructible classic recently celebrated its 25th birthday on March 18, and it came from an age when Nokia completely dominated’mobile phones’, making the 3210 the iPhone of its time. Wikipedia estimates that there were 160 million in the wild in 1999.
As I recounted in TechRadar’s nostalgic look back at the team’s first phones, the 3210 didn’t do much more than send SMS, play Snake, and go for weeks without charging.
However, it was one of the first major phones without an external antenna. The design was reportedly inspired by both Casio G-Shock watches and the Sony Walkman, which explains its utilitarian appearance.
Subsequent phones became much more colorful and feature-rich, but the 3210 was arguably the pinnacle of dumbphones – and while HMD’s remake isn’t exactly a faithful tribute, I’m glad to see the phone return, at least in spirit, as a reminder of a time when endless doomscrolling wasn’t such a dangerous wormhole.
