
New Nokia 3310 will be practically unusable in many countries, including US - Liriel
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/nokia-3310-2017-supports-old-gsm-frequencies-will-be-useless-in-the-us-and-canada-1664424
======
throwaway642012
Nokia 3310 is going to fail in the markets it's being launched at, i.e. India.
The biggest reason for it's (possible) failure is that the people have simply
moved on to Android/4G.

Nokia's were a rage when the mobile market was nascent (2004-2010), and
carriers flooded the market with cheap SMS rates. With loads of cheap Android
phones available, and no WhatsApp on Nokia devices, it's a DoA device. And it
doesn't even look as durable as the original classic.

~~~
LostWanderer
I guess not!

There is still a huge population which wants basic phones as a backup atleast.
There are places in india where electricity is not so easy to get and the
monthly salary is still under 100$ The senior citizens even though have
migrated to smartphones stil are in the dire need of a durable small phone.

I feel apple may also jump in with a luxury feature phone,Just a matter of
time

~~~
vatotemking
This! Low-end Nokia phones are not meant to replace Android phones, but as a
backup(supplementary) phone.

Might not be apparent in Silicon valley but in third-world countries its:

* Snatcher deterrence. It would be less likely targeted than say an iPhone when used in risky public areas.

* Ideal for people who'd only use a phone for texting and calling (eg. older people, farmers, laborers).

* A phone that does not need baby sitting: long batt life, doesn't care if it falls on the floor, when it rains just wrap it in plastic.

* And the one thing that I miss the most in smartphones: Texting without ever looking at the screen.

~~~
drfuchs
Our teen could hold her iPhone under the dinner table and 2-thumb touch-type
texts while keeping eye contact with us, hoping we wouldn't notice. When
caught, she demoed that she could be almost 100% accurate even with the phone
completely out of her sight. Dead-reckoning with no feedback! Necessity is the
mother of invention, I suppose.

~~~
johnchristopher
I don't think I would have been able to do that as a teen.

------
jamiethompson
I'm in the UK and I've already scratched this itch by replacig my iPhone with
a Nokia 105
([https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-105](https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-105))

All the features of this new 3310, but even more authentic, and they're
selling for 10-20GBP

Edit: did I mention that it only needs charging once a week?

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Had one like it in China in 2008. It was a decent phone. Crappy camera though.

~~~
jamiethompson
No camera on the 105

------
fnordfnordfnord
I never really considered that they would simply make a clone of a Nokia 3310
with an updated display. Why no modern radio? I think people would buy this if
it weren't crippled by obsolete hardware.

------
drej
Anyone saying this phone is destined to fail miserably - don't look at it from
your viewpoint, but from your (grand)parents'. My mum can't stand touchscreens
from an UX perspective, plus she hates the constant charging. All she ever
does is call her friends and family and send the occasional text to check on
us.

There are currently phones that serve her well (e.g. Nokia 230). This is
another one.

~~~
icebraining
I still see quite a few of them even among the 30-50 years-old range. Here in
the lowest rungs of the developed world, the choice is often between a
featurephone or a very cheap Android, and the latter are often unusable crap.
Personally, I use a 20€ Wiko Lubi4 and a tablet instead. Smartphones are jack
of all trades, but not really satisfying for any.

That said, even my Wiko does support four networks. Seems shortsighted to be
selling these nowadays, even in the markets they're targeting.

------
timonoko
This is exactly what a retro-phone should do. Originally a standard GSM-phone
worked everywhere else except in USA and some clueless South American
countries, like Chile.

~~~
bonzini
I remember my European cell phone also didn't work in South Korea in 2006,
because they used CDMA.

------
Theodores
My mother is not able to use a modern Android or other phone, she really does
need the phone numbers and some small address book facility, 1: daugher 2:
brother 3: son 4: her best friend 5??? After that then it is paper phone book
and typing digits. The turn of the century never happened!!!

We have tried getting special phones for my mother but the UX is always worse
than worse. They are unusable to people! So maybe if this Nokia actually
worked on 3G it would be perfectly suited for her, a landline style phone that
worked without the landline. There is definitely a market for such a phone
that has a good brand, e.g. 'Nokia' is nice and shiny with lots of colours and
just works.

The other feature I think is needed is mobile wifi hotspot. Ideally you just
press a button and the display shows the SSID and access code, again that
being some easy code.

Again, my mother can use a computer perfectly fine for online shopping, if she
just had to press a button on the phone and that meant her computer was online
then that would be something she could do herself. Her hands are too arthritic
to do web surfing on a handheld device, she needs a keyboard and trackpad. The
right Nokia could have enabled this.

------
headShrinker
I love the idea of a stripped down "basic" well designed phone. I was just
talking to my friend who is much older, about it. We were romanticizing the
days of the Motorola StarTAC. I don't want a browser, email, apps, social, or
a big screen, just a phone and contact list. The StarTAC was simple sleek, had
a dial pad and contact list, and the battery lasted 5 days.

In todays terms, for me that is like StarTrek technology.

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting question, is 2G dead because people don't want 2G or is 2G dead
because phone companies don't want to support it? Or something else.

~~~
dagw
The phone companies don't want to support it, or more specifically, they want
to reuse the 2G spectrum to build out their LTE network.

~~~
joecool1029
LTE is more spectral efficient, but it's expected that GSM will outlive 3G
technology (WCDMA, ie. UMTS/HSPA) due to the low cost of deploying and ability
to run on very small spectrum slices (200khz, can be done with only about 1Mhz
of spectrum so long as the network is planned carefully due to channel reuse)

Carriers that can get away with running GSM in their guard bands often do to
support legacy M2M devices and international roaming customers.

~~~
sofaofthedamned
There's a load of coke vending machines etc using 2g, and the networks hate
it.

------
papul1993
How expensive would it be to manufacture a feature phone that is compatible
with 2G, 3G and 4G LTE with VoLTE support? I think there is a good market for
such a product.

~~~
joecool1029
Getting cheaper but those radios are still comparatively power hungry, costs
of certification are high, and it's really up to the carrier if they want to
allow it on their voLTE network. 3G/2G featurephones do exist.

Try buying an international phone with the correct band support and put it
onto a US network, it'll kick down to 3G or 2G to make the call. No point
really in having the extra data speeds a featurephone won't need (for most
people). I personally would like to have a small, durable, and low powered
featurephone I could also use as a usb modem.

------
ro_sharp
Is anyone aware of an alternative (with a similar budget price, maybe
something marketed in the developing world?) that can be used on a modern
phone network?

~~~
jamiethompson
Nokia 105. Works for me.

~~~
shalmanese
The 105 is also 2G only and won't work in the US, Canada or Australia.

------
joecool1029
Woulda been nice if they could have put GSM1900 in it. It would have worked on
T-Mobile.

I'm in the DIGITS beta and have a sim that's basically a clone of my main
smartphone line, I use the clone on a 2G featurephone cause the battery lasts
a week. It's also funny to have the old ringtones go off.

------
Nokinside
3310 market is poor people in developing countries.

That said, it's just marketing trick.

I have Nokia 108 (dual sim) phone I use in weekends. It's smaller and the
battery lasts 31 days in standby mode.

[http://imgur.com/a/HOlOk](http://imgur.com/a/HOlOk)

------
walshemj
Well DUH its well known the USA went there own way and ignored GSM either for
NIH or NTB

~~~
maxerickson
AT&T was using GSM back when it was Cingular, before the 3G rollout.

So did the progenitor to T-Mobile.

I think on different frequency bands, limiting the usefulness of international
phones.

~~~
joecool1029
>AT&T was using GSM back when it was Cingular, before the 3G rollout.

They were using it up until the end of 2016.
[https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM10848...](https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1084805)

> So did the progenitor to T-Mobile.

T-Mobile still uses GSM1900 nationwide and GSM850 (not well known that they
do) in Myrtle Beach, SC.

>I think on different frequency bands, limiting the usefulness of
international phones.

You don't know what you're talking about, stop spreading misinformation. There
are small rural/regional carriers that still use GSM1900 or GSM850 in areas, I
can think of Indigo Wireless out in west PA as one of the companies.

~~~
maxerickson
> They were using it up until the end of 2016.

>T-Mobile still uses GSM1900 nationwide and GSM850 (not well known that they
do) in Myrtle Beach, SC.

I wasn't trying to establish that they had stopped, I was pointing out that
they adopted it quite some time ago.

Perhaps "international phone" was the wrong term, my intent was to say that
phones sold in Europe often wouldn't work in the US. Was that not the case?
Oh, I see in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13792767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13792767)
that you agree with that. Sorry if I used the wrong words.

Hasty interpretation of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands)
at least indicates that different frequencies were used in different areas.

~~~
joecool1029
> I wasn't trying to establish that they had stopped, I was pointing out that
> they adopted it quite some time ago.

My apologies, I wrongly assumed we were talking about the current network
landscape. You would be correct.

> Hasty interpretation of
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands)
> at least indicates that different frequencies were used in different areas.

If memory serves. In the US it was GSM1900 up until the late 90's/early
2000's, AT&T Wireless decommissioned their legacy TDMA network at the time on
850mhz and shifted to using 850mhz for GSM due to better rural signal
propagation.

Worldwide outside north america's 850/1900, there is 900/1800, and to a much
lesser extent maybe 450 for siberia, and in other places likely better served
by satellite.

------
dang
Url changed from
[https://thenextweb.com/mobile/2017/03/03/nokia-3310-unusable...](https://thenextweb.com/mobile/2017/03/03/nokia-3310-unusable-2g-us/),
which points to this.

