Why the Nokia 3310 was so strong compared to phones now and even phone at the same time.

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Why the Nokia 3310 was so strong compared to phones now and even phone at the same time.

In: Engineering

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The Nokia “Brick Phone” was deliberately designed to be marketed in Third World countries where conditions were harsh.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The nokia 3310 being immortal is an urban legend. But it indeed was resistant because it was designed and built to be like this.
Other phones at this time were also built this way but the succes of nokia phones makes people mainly remember this model.
Now for the new phones, they are designed and built to be performant and burn out after 2 to 5 years. This is intended, obviously for profit, and to lower the phone cost. (or at least it was but the big fruit company forgot about the last part).

Anonymous 0 Comments

Well, you can’t really compare a Nokia 3310 to a modern smartphone. A smartphone is, in fact, a computer. It is way more complex than an Nokia 3310. Many of these new complex features are much easier to break. For example, on a Nokia 3310 you hate a shit screen. It doesn’t matter if the material you use looks good or not when you have a screen like that. This means you could just give it a very sturdy screen. On new smartphones on the other hand you have extremely high resolution touchscreens. So the focus is on making a very good looking display, but the downside is you can’t just use the most sturdy material then. The construction is also much more finely done.

Back when the 3310 came out a lot of other phones were just as hard to break, but the Nokia 3310 was a really big hit so most people had one of those, so obviously when people think back that is the one they remember as the unbreakable. I won’t deny that it was among the more study, it was built very well – remember that a Nokia was a quality phone. But it isn’t like it was this special unbreakable thing that was way better than everything else. People just don’t remember other phones from back then.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Consider the materials most modern smartphones are made out of. Glass and thin metal.

Glass is a great material for a lot of reasons. It’s actually very strong and durable. It resists bending, is scratch resistant, easy to clean, and not damaged by heat or UV light. The problem with glass though is it’s very difficult to make the perfect sheet. Small imperfections create weak spots, which make it brittle. Hence why smartphone screens will shatter when dropped.

Thin metals on phones serve a couple of purposes. They primarily help with heat dissipation, which is critical as phone processors become more powerful. It also looks attractive. But thin metals bend easily. Hence the whole “bendgate” debacle with so many of Apple’s products.

The Nokia 3310 on the other hand is one big hunk of plastic. Plastic screen, plastic outer shell, and a thick plastic chassis inside holding all the electronics in place. One of the key properties of plastic is how they resist compressive and tensile loads through deformation. Certain plastics will also spring back to their original shape following deformation. So when you drop the legendary Nokia, it’s plastic shell deforms and absorbs the energy of the impact. Contrast to glass which doesn’t like to deform, or metal which won’t spring back on its own.

So what are the downsides of plastic? Well, it scratches easily, which is especially bad for displays. It can also crack over time through repeated deformation, and weaken due to exposure to UV light. Plus people think plastic looks and feels cheap. People like their phones to have a premium quality about them. So even though plastic is probably more durable material, people would prefer metal or glass.