‘Member, way back, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the world had this thing called “feature phones”. Only they weren’t called feature phones. They were just… phones. One particular brand stood out — Nokia. They’re back in force and have rebooted one of our absolute favourite feature phones — the Nokia 5310.
In 2007, people around the world readied their wallets to get their hands on the ultimate music phone — the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music. It went up against Sony Erricson’s W-range of phones. But this… this was a fricking Nokia. These things just last.
It packed a 16M colour QVGA display, dedicated music keys, stereo sound, Bluetooth and FM radio in a sleek body. You know what? The world needed another 5310, even if Apple’s iPhone changed the world in 2007. Now, finally, we’re getting one.
The new old
Nokia has been revamping old fan-favourites for years now, with people fighting to get to their MWC stage to check ‘em out. We’ve previously seen the revamped 3310, and the 8110 4G ‘bananaphone’.
The new Nokia 5310 Xpress Music features the same tech you remember, like a display size of 2.4in and a 240×320 resolution. It’s fitted with a 1,200mAh battery, 8MB of RAM, and will have a total standby-time of 30 days. Show us a modern phone that can beat that number.
We expect the new 5310 to serve as a feature phone for users without access to smartphones or power (so… all South Africans?). But this could also be a brilliant secondary phone for anyone trying to cut down on smartphone use. This thing can literally last 20 days on a battery with constant use. That’s wild. Plus, it plays music. But it only has 2G connectivity, which means… no mobile internet.
The new 5310 launches at the end of March and will retail for EUR40 (R750) — a decent deal considering the talk time on this one. We’ll update as soon as we get local pricing and availability.
