In 2024, the 3G network infrastructure began to be decommissioned in Australia. This meant I needed to change my handset to a 4G handset.
I started using portable computers in 1997 with the Psion 3a (7MHz, 2Mb RAM) prior to Psion merging with Nokia, the pioneer of the smartphone with their Nokia 9000 Communicator.
I started using mobile telephones in 1999 with the flagship Nokia 5110. Apart from one year using a Mitsubishi CDMA handset, all my mobile telephone handsets have been Nokias. Most recently I have used the following Nokia smartphones:
I have not owned, used, or even tried any iOS or Android handset, tablet, MP3 player, etc. aside from when strangers have handed me an extremely heavy touchscreen and asked me to take a photograph of their group.
Therefore my review of the HMD Nokia 3210 4G handset is not biased by unrealistic comparison with any iOS or Android capabilities, since I have never used such platforms and don't know what they are capable of. This review is of a Nokia handset from the perspective of a customer who has only used Nokia handsets for 25 years (apart from 1 year on CDMA).
The Nokia E5 and E72 are very large at 115 × 59 × 13 mm but they accommodate a full QWERTY keyboard (most people assume my E72 is a Blackberry). In comparison, the 3210 is much smaller and more pocketable (which is good) and only a fraction of the mass (which is good) but has only a T9 keypad (which would be OK if the predictive text algorithm were as good as a genuine Nokia implementation, but it isn't).
I am unsure where designers of mobile telephone handsets test feasibility and usability but it seems to be at a location that is far darker than Australia tends to be. Here one must cup a hand over a transmissive LED screen in order to see anything in the artificial shadow your hand creates (which is bad). Black-and-white LCD reflective screens such as the original Nokia 5110 and Texus Instruments calculators use are far superior (which is good) because they can be read in direct sunlight without any trouble whatsoever. Certain manufacturers layer eInk/ePaper (for static content) with LCD (for active content) to provide high contrast, high clarity, displays that are usable outdoors (which is good). The Nokia 3210 4G uses a colour backlit display which is usually washed out by background lighting conditions (which is bad) and it doesn't even need one. The only time colour display is remotely helpful or potentially necessary is when using the camera. At all other times a reflective LCD (as the original Nokia 3210 has) would provide both superior performance and improve battery life. It may be that HMD believes the colour backlit screen was an upgrade from the original 3210 design but it actually makes the 3210 4G handset inferior to the original.
My Nokia E5 and Nokia E72 both have Bluetooth and Wifi. Wifi on such handsets is primarily used to provide a NAT Access Point for laptops. I have installed JoikuSpot Premium on my E5/E72 to provide that functionality. It seems like a significant downgrade to release a new handset that lacks hardware that established handsets have. I think the HMD 3210 4G ought to have a wifi radio and inbuilt Access Point program.
I have a 256Mb microSD card. I used dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb to blank it and then created a MBR FAT32 partition. The HMD 3210 4G cannot read it or write to it. I then reformatted it to FAT16 and the HMD 3210 4G still cannot read it or write to it.
My recent smartphones have run Series 60 which is a derivative of Nokia's Symbian which is a derivative of Psion's EPOC. This is a very strong thoroughbred lineage which has stood the rigours of time and advanced smartphones from being science fiction into reality.
The HMD Nokia 3210 4G (2024) runs Series 30+. It seems very sloppy in many ways and doesn't seem to have been tested rigorously. There is so much inconsistency it feels like many different teams implemented various parts independently and then it was glued together without checking if there was any consistent presentation paradigm.
From the desktop, Centre opens Menu (which is stuck in icon grid mode) and Left opens the GoTo menu (which is stuck in text row mode). Many of the items in one do not appear in the other and vice-versa. Authentic Nokia S60 firmware in my E72 has Left opening the (only) Menu where Left (Options) provides the option to Change Menu view between text and icon representation. This is much clearer than HMD's S30+ firmware splitting things into two independent menus that are stuck in specific representations. The graphic menu can be toggled between a 1x1 and 3x3 image grid, however the confirmation prompt to do so is incoherent.
Authentic Nokia S60 firmware in my E72 supports opening the menu and then pressing a sequence of numbers to open menuitems corresponding to those indices (eg Menu 7 (messaging) 1 (new message) 1 (text message)) which rewards familiarity and routine with quick and easy navigation. HMD's S30+ firmware doesn't seem to provide this functionality at all which is disappointing and inferior to pre-existing implementations; surely Nokia's codebase is available to HMD?
When navigating the menus, sometimes the Left softkey is a flower, sometimes it is a stripey flag, sometimes it is a washing machine. For example, SIM / Cell Broadcast / Language presents a strange concentric graphic for the Left softkey with no clear purpose. It would be far more accessible to just use a word that's clearly understood. For example, in GoTo menu / Missed Calls, a stripey flag is associated with Left but pressing that button does nothing.
GoTo menu / GoTo option / select options / right softkey prompts to save what options have been toggled on and off. Selecting back should actually take you back to your current selection of what items to hide or show prior to exploring the save option. Instead it actually seems to abort out and forget all the changes the user made, which is needlessly frustrating. back cannot function to mean "do not save and forget all changes". If that were intended, it should be telegraphed to the user with a word like "abort" or "forget".
When customising the GoTo menu, rows can be toggled Marked and Unmarked. The top row visually updates as expected in response to user input. Subsequent rows do not visually update in response to user input.
When in message composition, Left softkey with a stripey flag shows a menu with > right chevrons where Right softkey opens submenus. However in the camera program, Left softkey shows a menu with > right chevrons where Right softkey does nothing. This is an incoherent presentation.
Settings / Backlight displays a numerical value. Typing a numerical value on the keypad fails to change the setting. Pressing the centre select fails to bring up anything to change the setting. Eventually I discovered that pressing Left and Right changes the value. This is unintuitive.
left GoTo menu / Settings / Profiles / Left / Settings / Adjust Volume is changed by pressing Up and Down. This is inconsisent with the way Backlight is adjusted. The earpiece is too quiet to hear clearly at maximum volume, and the speakerphone is a perfect volume at value 3. Bizarrely adjusting the earpiece volume changes the speakerphone volume and vice-versa. This is unintuitive and counterproductive.
clock settings / 24H has a strange graphic. It is unclear what it might be. Perhaps a tape cassette window. It seems to be able to flipflop from left to right, but pressing Left and Right is ineffective; pressing Centre flips its image. Nevertheless it isn't clear what this represents (ie, which graphic represents 12H AM/PM and which graphic represents 24H). The equivalent setting for authentic Nokia S60 firmware in my E72 is pressing Centre to toggle "Time Format" between "12-hour" and "24-hour" values which are much clearer.
Within the clock alarms, each alarm can be activated and deactivated using a similar mystery glyph. Likewise, it seems to be able to flipflop from left to right, but pressing Left and Right is ineffective; pressing Centre flips its image. There is a strange ghost entry in the list of alarms to spawn a new alarm, whereas all the other actions to modify alarms are inside the stripey flag accessed using the Left softkey. This is inconsistent and strange. My authentic Nokia handsets put all options including creating a new alarm into the submenu.
Settings / Software Update flashes up a status message which automatically dismisses itself far too quickly to be able to read.
On my authentic Nokia handsets I can toggle on a Call Summary which displays at the end of a call, displaying the duration, so that I can keep track of how many of my monthly plan allowance minutes have elapsed. On my HMD 3210 4G, a tiny counter shows during the call but there is no Call Summary. There is an option to have a tone sound at a fixed interval during calls, but this has me checking whether a SMS arrived during the call, or whether someone else is trying to call me and waiting on hold during this active call. By the end of the call I have no idea how many tones sounded. Compared to the Call Summary, this feature is aggravating and useless.
On my authentic Nokia handsets, when I open an SMS, I can press the Call key in order to dial the sender of that message, or recipient if I am looking at a sent message. On my HMD 3210 4G, pressing the Call key does nothing. Instead I must find a pen and a scrap of paper, write out the phone number displayed with the message on my paper, exit back to the desktop, key in the phone number, and press the Call key. This is absolutely crazy.
On my authentic Nokia handsets, when I reply to an SMS, and then save the draft, it is preserved in the Drafts folder. On this HMD 3210 4G, when I begin a reply to an SMS, and then save the draft, it is erased when that sender sends a new message. This is absolutely crazy.
Sometimes when I send a SMS, it disappears and does not concatenate to the message log. A green icon appears at the top. The recipient responds to it, so it clearly got delivered - it just never got recorded in the HMD 3210 handset's memory. This is frustrating.
On my authentic Nokia handsets, when I press the Call key from the desktop, the most recently dialled list is displayed. On this HMD 3210 4G, doing so displays the missed calls list. This is bizarre.
On my authentic Nokia handsets, when a missed call status message is displayed from the desktop, I can dismiss it without needing to display the missed call list. On this HMD 3210 4G, I must display the missed calls list to get rid of the status message.
When an SMS arrives, the key sequence to read it is arduous:
Within the clock alarms, the text "here.Create" needs a space.
The bootup chime is obnoxiously loud. Firmware in my authentic Nokia hansets allows the Call button to interrupt and silence the bootup chime. HMD S30+ firmware doesn't respect this established precedent.
The keypad has obnoxiously loud tones and it is non-trivial to turn them off.
The FM radio begins when the radio program is launched, but it is non-trivial to turn it off. I had to turn the whole handset off and turn it back on.
The camera program supports the user enabling or disabling the artificial shutter release soundclip. This is excellent. However, that is the only feedback the user gets that a photograph has actually been taken. With the soundclip disabled, the user presses the button harder and harder, never knowing if or when the image will be recorded. My authentic Nokia handsets show the taken image as visual feedback when a photograph is taken. Not inheriting this established behaviour is bewildering.
The camera program supports the user enabling or disabling the flash once for all. This is excellent. My authentic Nokia handsets re-enable the flash every time the camera program launches (which is very irritating) so HMD S30+ respecting the user's control and choice to disable the flash until further notice is a big improvement that users will be significantly grateful for. Flash is occasionally helpful but in Australia it is rarely dark enough for flash to not be unhelpfully counterproductive.
My authentic Nokia handsets all shipped with Ovi Maps installed and AGPS. The HMD 3210 4G doesn't have this. This is really disappointing.
My authentic Nokia handsets all shipped with Notes and Active Notes text editors. The HMD 3210 4G doesn't have any text editor. This is really disappointing.
When SMSes arrive while the keypad is locked, the SMS arrival chime sounds at the time and additionally it sounds again when the keypad is unlocked.
Predictive text algorithm is extremely primitive compared with the implementation shipped on my 2011 Nokia C5. It consistently gets case wrong. When holding a key to generate a number, the second keyhold generates a second number; predictive text then supplies a clone of the earlier two numbers as a suggestion! This is counterproductive, unhelpful, and vastly inferior to the implementation available in the authentic Nokia codebase and rigorously tested by millions.
The firmware provides the user with the choice to only charge the battery partially in order to prevent it ageing prematurely. This is excellent and more manufacturers should offer this level of control! When the handset completes its (partial) charge with this option active, the screen displays two contradictory status messages claiming the battery both is and is not completely charged. It makes sense that the battery is charged as much as it's going to charge and that that charge level is not 100% but displaying contradictory information to the user is incoherent and unprofessional.
At arbitrary intervals, the HMD 3210 4G displays a prompt, telling me that my feedback is important to HMD, however this does not display in response to anything I do. It is very fragile and vanishes when I try to interact with it. I have no way of bringing it back when it vanishes and just have to wait until it displays again weeks or months later. The text entry field to submit feedback has a very low character limit (60 characters?), necessitating building this webpage to record feedback. The feedback prompt tells the user it depends on having an active "data" connection enabled, however it does not support the usecase where the users complies by turning on their "data" connection and then returns to the feedback process. As soon as the user goes to enable their "data" connection, the feedback process is lost until it chooses to resurface weeks or months later.
Hardware seems adequate but inferior both to the original Nokia 3210 (eg in terms of screen) and inferior to a decade-old Nokia E5.
Firmware seems woefully inadequate. It is probably late alphaware since there are evidently many conspicuous bugs that have not yet been fixed. These are bugs that would be immediately apparent to any tester who uses the handset for a day, after using authentic Nokia handsets.
Overall, the quality of this package (hardware, firmware and software suite) is embarrassing to the Nokia brand. For the last 25 years I have proudly extolled the virtues of my authentic Nokia handsets, but I will certainly not be able to do so sincerely for this product.
Primarily because I have little choice.
It has dual SIM slots, which simultaneously work both on 4G, and is probably the only Nokia (or even non-iOS/Android handset) to do so. This is excellent.
It cost $94 which is half what I paid for my Nokia E72. I estimate its featureset to be about 20% of what my E72 continues to offer (because I now carry both handsets with me with the HMD3210 being used for calls / SMSes and the E72 being used for contact list, notepad, camera, mSD storage).
I would consider the Planet Computers Gemini 4G because it runs Linux and has the Psion Series 5 keyboard. But they aren't being sold any more.
I would consider the PinePhone because it runs Linux and has a keyboard. But they aren't being sold any more.
I'm not really going to consider any of the iOS / Android gimmick gadgets because:
Ultimately the iOS / Android offerings provide negligible (if any) benefit at enormous personal and social cost and are nowhere near competitive with the traditional established Nokia featureset.
All HMD need to do to retain that market share is maintain the established Nokia featureset. They have not managed to do so with the HMD 3210 4G.