Nokia’s Banana Phone From ‘The Matrix’ Is Making A Comeback
It was the featured phone in 'The Matrix'; this time around it's an excellent tool for disconnecting on days off.
If Nokia learned anything from re-releasing its classic 3310 brick phone last year, it’s that people go bananas for retro tech. So it’s only fitting that the company’s nostalgia play this year is a reboot of its 1996 ‘banana phone,’ the sleek Nokia 8110 that everybody remembers from the movie The Matrix.
Much like the 3310, the new 8110 4G isn’t meant to replace your smartphone. It’s billed instead as a second phone ⏤ albeit it one with some ‘smart’ functionality ⏤ that’s good for talking to people and ‘disconnecting’ on the weekends. And with nine hours of talk time and a standby battery life of 25 days on a single charge, that’s a lot of weekends.
Neo may not be walking through that door, but the new 8110 boasts the same curved body with protective cover and 2.4-inch screen (although now in color) as the original, just not with the spring-loaded slider from the movie ⏤ the original phone never offered that feature. It does, however, include a 2 MP camera with LED flash and will be sold in either black or yellow.
It also coverts to a wireless hotspot and will run a limited number of apps ⏤ including Google Assistant, Google Search, Google Maps, Facebook and Twitter ⏤ as well as sync with Gmail and Outlook to send and receive emails. You just have to type them out on the numerical keypad. Oh yeah, and just like the 3310, it comes preloaded with an updated version of the classic game Snake.
The revamped 8810 4G will cost $97 and hits the market in May.
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