How difficult can it be to replicate a successful product? Apparently too difficult for whoever it was that completely missed the point when designing this revised Nokia 3310 phone.
Here is the paradox: Truly great design, construction and workmanship is barely noticed or remembered, because it never calls attention to itself. If you're asked to describe the best features of Tower Bridge, it is unlikely you'll mention the foundations or the pointing of the mortar between the stones. Thus the wonderfulness of the original Nokia 3310 was not its shape nor the "Snake" game, even if those are the best remembered features, but the ergonomics, the easily used interface and the readability of the screen in sunlight.
This revised Nokia 3310 does indeed include an updated "Snake" game but has appallingly bad ergonomics and an awful user interface.
Here are some of the most significant problems:
What appear visually as three buttons just below the screen are actually nine buttons and if you've got fingers larger than those found on an ordinary small child then you'll likely find the buttons "fiddly". If your fingers are manly-man size then you'll likely find the button size exasperating. Alas these are the nine-buttons you'll need to use to operate every feature so they are unavoidable.
The original Nokia 3310 had a screen that could be read easily in daylight because it used simple reflective LCD technology (designed to be usable outdoors which, oddly, is a common place for using a mobile phone) but the replacement has gone for a the usual gaudy coloured screen which is only readable in subdued lighting.
The buttons are backlit and in truly dark conditions can be seen easily. Alas the emitted light is such that in ordinary room lighting the backlit portions are hard to distinguish from the non-illuminated portions, so the backlight makes the text on the buttons almost impossible to see. If only somebody had thought to make the buttons out of a very dark plastic all would be well, but they didn't and it isn't.
The case of the original Nokia 3310 was a doddle to open if you needed to swap SIM cards in a hurry. That feature is tragically missing from the revised one which has a case that needs to be prized open rather delicately. The easily opened case of the original is a classic example of a feature that was so well designed that it attracted no attention nor comment.
Navigation through the menus and features is more difficult than it should be for three reasons:
(1) As noted above the nine navigation buttons are much too small for rapid use by adult fingers.
(2) The "reverse" / "escape" / "cancel" feature (provided by pressing the top-right corner of the top-right button) is over-eager so oftentimes you'll cancel an operation unintentionally and have to start again.
(3) It isn't very intuitive.
What about the good points? In optimum conditions the phone does what a simple phone should do. The optimum conditions are indoors, in very subdued lighting so that the button backlight enhances the text rather than obliterating it, and with the blunt end of a biro to press the fiddly buttons. Sound is clear.
If you have large, manly fingers, and wanted a robust phone that can be used quickly and easily outdoors in daylight ... this isn't it.
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