Like an ice-fiend in the throes of a self passion marathon, the Nokia 3310 was a device that could still perform after being brutally thrashed for 22 hours. It’s the kind of durability and battery life you can set your watch to.
3310’s survived more crashes than a black box and damaging the brick was tougher than nailing Oddjob with a PP7 in a heated multiplayer session.
Smartphones boast a lot of features but the 3310 was the original multitasker – telephone, SMS, door stop and in the case of a potential mugging – a projectile defence weapon that would concuss the thief 6 way from Sunday.
Naturally, a major perk of owning a Nokia was flexing your Snake high score. A simple yet intoxicating game that put you under the kind of pressure you’d feel releasing an orc-lord from your ring in a tiny hobbit toilet.
It also predated MySpace in the cringeworthy customisation stakes. There was no feeling like shoplifting a few covers from King Kong in the CBD to show anyone who saw your phone that you were a big-time Limp Bizkit fan.
Ableton? Fruity Loops? Yep, it’s got your number too. Allowing aspiring DJs to compose their own sick beats to use as ringtones. Not that anyone was calling you in 2000 but it was nice to have that option.
However, in the field of customisable tunes, the real thrill came from using your parent’s credit card to order songs & comical voicemail audios off dodgy magazines you found on the floor of toilets.
Sure that $9.99 copy of crazy frog would earn you a crazy flogging but it paid dividends when you sent everyone you knew insane with the worst audio ever recorded.
Texting is where the 3310 really stood out. This bad boy had T9 predictive text, baby. No longer were you hammering the keys like a toey ape trying to send a clumsy message to a crush that was ghosting you on MSN.
Furthermore, it allowed for extra-long texts (although your telecom would slug you 3 fees for it). This meant it was a pioneering device for rambling, overly emotional drunk messages to that same crush at 2 am – but at least you had to really work for that message, often taking 30+ minutes.
Good times.
