PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
No, you haven’t woken up in September 2000.
The eagerly awaited Nokia 3310 (that isn’t really made by Nokia) has gone on sale. With an RRP of £49.99 and distributed by Exertis, the modern day ‘dumb phone’ is available from a variety of retailers including Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone.
Specs wise you’re looking at a 2.4-inch colour screen, a 30 day battery life, a two-megapixel camera, expandable 16GB storage and (unlike the iPhone 7) a 3.5mm headphone jack.
However, the majority of the interest drummed up by Finnish startup HMD largely boils down to nostalgia. While Andrew Wilson, UK buying director for Mobile at Carphone Warehouse, said that "the latent nostalgia for the 3310 is backed up by a practical functionality", there has been no shortage of cheap feature phones over the past few years. The main difference here is that the 3310 has been heavily hyped and marketed as a sort of ‘disconnected revolution’.
This has been pointed out by Andreas Pouros, co-founder and COO of Greenlight Digital as being an area of intrigue: "brands don’t do nostalgia marketing for the sake of it. After all, not all brands can achieve that trip-down-memory-lane feeling like the classic ‘first mobile game’ Snake. If brands do plan to use nostalgia marketing within its campaigns, they must understand their audience well enough to ensure the campaign not only resonates, but also is something their customers actually want.
“It’ll be interesting to see if the sales reflect the hype for Nokia 3310, or if it was simply a PR stunt to generate excitement for the brand."
While £49.99 might be expensive for a novelty purchase, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the new 3310 flying off the shelves over the next few weeks. After all the dust has settled however everyone might be asking what all the fuss was about as they nurse their sore thumbs.
