How Strong Is A Nokia Phone

Front side of the old Nokia 3310 held in hand.

On September one, 2000, Nokia announced a telephone that would proceed to become not only i of its near popular handsets, but one of the near pop mobile phones ever.

Made of two layers of plastic, the legendary Nokia 3310 ended upwards selling a total of 126 million units (combining sales of the original 3310 with its several variants) over its lifetime. Fun fact: the original 3310 was never available for sale in the U.South., although variants like the 3390 did brand it to Northward America.

The pattern of the Nokia 3310 remains one of the nearly iconic in mobile telephone history. Its shape immune anyone to get a skilful solid grip. In an interview with Metamag.org, the designer of the 3310, Tapani Jokinen, stated that the phone was created with what he called "a strong iconic grin chemical element." You lot can definitely see that in the 3310'southward keys and user interface buttons, all of which seem to smile as they look dorsum at you. Jokinen said this was done to make the phone wait more friendly.

In 2017, HMD Global, which at present sells phones under the Nokia brand, announced it would release a new version of the Nokia 3310. It retained much of the "grinning" look of the original but swapped out the small monochrome display for a larger 2.4-inch color QVGA screen. Sales of the phone were apparently expert enough for the company to launch a 4G version earlier in 2018.

Front side of the new Nokia 3310 held in hand with the display turned on.

As pop as both the original and rebooted Nokia 3310 have become, the original became notorious for its seeming indestructibility. Indeed, in the last decade the term "indestructible Nokia 3310" has become ane of the about well-known memes in the tech industry.

Is the original Nokia 3310 really indestructible? Well…

The meme got its beginning, similar many other memes, in a Reddit thread. In December 2011, in the r/geek subreddit, a discussion labeled "The Terminator of cellphones" got started, with a person posting an image of the older Nokia 1100 telephone, and claiming the only way to destroy information technology is to have it to the fictional volcanic lava of Mordor. In response, some other person posted an prototype of the Nokia 3310 and called it "the Witch King," a reference to leaders of the Nazgul, Mordor's evil ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings.

Meme displaying the indestructibility of the old Nokia 3310

The meme really got going afterward that month in another Reddit thread, "Nostalgia," where a person posted an epitome of an iPhone next to the Nokia 3310. The prototype captions said the iPhone would "break the screen" if information technology roughshod to the floor, while the Nokia 3310 would simply "break the floor." The response got the attention of various YouTube creators effectually the world, who quickly posted "tests" to encounter how much abuse the phone could actually take. Videos showing off the durability of the phone continue to this twenty-four hour period.

Some of these tests were more successful than others. I from 2017 shows a Nokia 3310 on the incorrect end of a burning hot hydraulic printing. Ouch.

Why can't modern smartphones be equally "indestructible" every bit the Nokia 3310?

The Nokia 3310 isn't as "indestructible" as the funny internet memes suggest. However, at that place'due south no uncertainty it's very durable and can take a beating and go along on working. And then, where are the mod "indestructible" smartphones?

At that place are certainly smartphones out there considered "rugged", like the ones from Caterpillar. They and other phones are rated as IP68 for dust and water resistance, which means they should operate even while placed in 10 feet of water for up to an 60 minutes. They should also survive falls of up to 6 feet.

Still, lots of smartphones over the years accept failed what's called the "curve examination." This trend started a few years ago, after Apple tree'southward iPhone 6 Plus started bending with normal use. Thus, the "curve test" was officially born, and YouTube tech video creators still put out videos bending new smartphones. Some modernistic smartphones passed and others (ahem) didn't. A few folks filmed the bend test on the original Nokia 3310, and every bit expected it stood upwards to the abuse extremely well.

Even so, with the exception of smartphones fabricated to be rugged, nearly modern smartphones are simply not designed to accept a lot of abuse. Smartphone makers want to make thin and light phones, which means using materials like aluminum and glass. That's why there's such a huge market for smartphone cases — people have learned, sometimes the hard way, that almost smartphones are fragile.

Also, phones designed deliberately to be rugged are ordinarily much more than expensive than normal smartphones with the same hardware specs, and they are fabricated for a specific audience: enterprise and business organization users who take phones to sometimes hazardous locations. Those rugged phones besides tend to be much thicker and heavier than their normal counterparts.

Couple of android smartphone stacked on top of each other.

It'due south possible to make a modern smartphone every bit "indestructible" equally the Nokia 3310, but it would take a lot of work to make something as tough and retain the thinness and weight we're used to.

A material solution promoted for smartphones for some fourth dimension is the use of graphene. First discovered in 2004, this "wonder material" is made out of i-atom-thick sheets of carbon. When layered properly it becomes many hundreds of times stronger than steel, only still extremely light. It's been promoted equally a way to make smartphones more durable, displays more than flexible, and to make batteries last longer. However, and so far its hope has remained more often than not in the laboratory, and there's no indication when that will change.

Modernistic smartphones won't be especially stiff or durable for some time. The "indestructible Nokia 3310" meme will likely remain unchallenged past anything modern for a long time — at to the lowest degree until a phone using more advanced materials finally causes a new trend in YouTube videos equally people try to destroy it.

Hopefully, the expect won't exist also long.