Just imagine the 3310 with 2nm technology and a modern battery that fills up the then available space. It would run forever™
BTW, proper dumbphones still exist these days. They don’t release flagships every year so there’s little to report on, but they’re being produced and sold.
Many of them even bear the name NOKIA but have little to do with the original.
An important aspect to consider here is the networks - the original 3310 had - at most - 2G.
Most countries are shutting their 2G and 3G networks down these days.
I wonder how that affects telephony capabilties of both old and new dumbphones.
Yeah, that is the right question. I do not care about data, but can we seriously still use voice and text (gsm?) in modern networks?
TBH I forgot that I had this discussion elsewhere and I’m about 99% sure that these phones simply become unusable when 2G is shut down, which is why some countries shut down 3G but not 2G. But I don’t remember or understand the technical stuff behind it.
There’s also somehing about these specs that we just call 2G or 3G etc., in reality it’s much more complex.
Now give it an e ink display
No dude, I am. I once fixed a car with a paper clip.
Nice!
A reboot has existed since 2017.
I don’t care much about 2nm, but this one probably runs an OS that’s miles more complex than whatever the original ran. Still I’d be curious about its battery life.
BTW those batteries are replaceable so you can actually test that part.
Except that phone is utter shit and has nothing to do with the original one except the name.
Meaningless hate aside,
has nothing to do with the original one except the name.
It has the form factor and the buttons. Being different inside was the whole point.
But you probably couldn’t use it as a bottle opener.
Actual dumbphones are also sold by the company that bears the name of the original Nokia, but I guess you hate those too.
Your username really checks out.
But it doesn’t have the buttons. Sure the shape slightly resembles it, but even that’s not complete, it’s thinner and wider for some reason. The cover doesn’t feel the same, it’s slick and not matte.
There’s just such little resemblance to the original in it’s key features that it’s more of a Temu copy than something worthy of carrying it’s name.
You really really hate the new 3310. To the point that you’re inventing adversaries where there are none.
Your link is broken.
Here is the one I think you mean, based on context and such.It runs Android, so it’s just as hackable and vulnerable to authoritarian systems as any other smart phone.
Now if it was a true feature phone… good luck sideloading spyware. You’d have to disassemble the phone and mount the chips in an EEPROM reader to get anywhere, and that’s not an effective remote exploit.
Now if it was a true feature phone… good luck sideloading spyware. You’d have to disassemble the phone and mount the chips in an EEPROM reader to get anywhere, and that’s not an effective remote exploit.
that’s dumb. it’s very likely just as vulnerable as androids. the modem’s software is full of decades legacy cruft and many security holes, and likely not properly separated from the mic, the ram or the storage
Said software resides in ROM - Read-Only Memory - and cannot be modified unless the chip is extracted from the phone and installed in a special EEPROM reader that permits/has the capability to write to the chip. The phone’s hardware literally lacks the electrical connections needed to write to that chip. Plus, these chips nearly always had so little extra room (as a cost-saving measure) that something as simple as saved phone numbers needed to be offloaded to the SIM card’s storage - from which it was impossible to run additional apps because, again, that functionality just didn’t exist.
And in many of these older feature phones, the in-memory footprint of actively running software was also well known, so RAM was limited (again, to save on costs) to handle only known apps, thereby leaving vanishingly little headroom and making an in-RAM exploit to piggyback in extra software equally difficult. Finally, most true feature phones didn’t have data connections, making it almost impossible to introduce data into memory.
About the only way data could get in would have been via SMS, and a feature phone has none of the SMS capabilities of modern phones - they could only display an SMS payload as raw text, they had no functionality to interact with that payload in any way, making zero-click exploits equally impossible.
Said software resides in ROM - Read-Only Memory
even if it is actually in read only memory (it is not in smartphones), that does not matter if a vulnerability grants remote code execution ability. it all happens in RAM. it is wiped with a power cycle but the attacker can just reinfect your phone.
to the SIM card’s storage - from which it was impossible to run additional apps because, again, that functionality just didn’t exist.
SIM cards support apps. have been that way for a very long time.
Finally, most true feature phones didn’t have data connections, making it almost impossible to introduce data into memory.
calls and sms are data, with a right vulnerability they can be used to deliver a payload
they could only display an SMS payload as raw text
same with modern phones, and yet attacks are delivered through them, somehow.
It’s cute you think they need to hack the OS get access to your phone.
No, it doesn’t run Android. Did you not read the introduction of the article?
I have a MRE Nokia phone, that can run a kind of ELF apps. There is no permission system so even worse than Android. At least apps can’t run in the background so they can only exfiltrate SMSs and unconsensual photos when open, and the latter takes ages over EDGE…
And you could play snakes on overdrive
You could have a phone that did what that phone does that has the form factor of an iPhone that would last at least 2.5 weeks with near constant use.
no name® should drop an iphone SE sized yellow block with the word “cellphone” in black on it
I had a job testing games on feature phones. I’ve played so much snakes in my life on a number pad.
modern tech would bring DLSS and PathTracing into snake which would allow it to run at well over 60FPS (with 6x frame gen)
If I could get my hands on linux phone with colour e-ink display I’d buy that shit in a heartbeat
A big difference would be the radio hardware. The 2G GSM radio had a huge Tx output. It was about 2 watts. 5G NR is 0.2 watts.
I wonder if the more modern mobile network protocols require slightly more power than the 2-3G of old. It’s probably a rounding error; it would run forever™ minus an hour or so.
Thanks for bringing this up. Most places - even Finland where I still saw original 3310’s in use a few years ago - are shutting these networks down. The 3310 did not have 3G btw. I don’t think they even called whatever it had 2G back then.
Not just slightly more power. A lot more power.
Mind you, performance went through the roof compared to 2/3G. Performance per watt went up. But to get that sweet 200-600Mbps wireless, you need more power. More uptime on the modem.
A phone from 25 years ago would “stay connected” to the network but idle the modem or even shut down higher functionalities beyond the standard connection ping. A modern phone is CONSTANTLY streaming data. Push notifications. Optimised download of music, syncing of photos, emails, chat messages for your 74 different apps in their different protocols. There’s no built in protocol to optimise a specific channel (SMS/MMS/RCS usage is considerably lower than iMessage, WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber, Telegram, etc.).
All that creep uses up resources. And unfortunately, the Windows Phone approach of designing for the lowest common denominator, with sane background task rules etc., went out the window around 2014 (even on desktop).
All of this combined makes a modern 3310 nigh impossible.
Or, you can have it, but it’s not a phone worth having, because all it will be able to do is call, send text messages, and maybe have a basic browser built in…
A phone from 25 years ago would “stay connected” to the network but idle the modem or even shut down higher functionalities beyond the standard connection ping. A modern phone is CONSTANTLY streaming data. Push notifications. Optimised download of music, syncing of photos, emails, chat messages for your 74 different apps in their different protocols.
you have lost the point. the point is not all that apps. the question was about the bare minimum needed for voice over 3G/4G. no push notifications, no music streaming, no apps of any kind. calls, and sms
All of this combined makes a modern 3310 nigh impossible.
does not. a 3310 was not an entertainment center, and a recreation of it wouldn’t either.
Or, you can have it, but it’s not a phone worth having, because all it will be able to do is call, send text messages, and maybe have a basic browser built in…
that’s the whole point
Those devices already exist tho. You can buy dumb/featurephones already. They exist with modern hardware and can last 2-4 weeks…
Well, a Nokia style phone would not need all this permanent movement of data. That is basically the point of such a device. Just Phonebook, phone, SMS, clock, alarm. But no Facebook, browser, Instagram, YouTube, photos and videos.
Optionally, a simple camera that only stores locally, and uploads to the PC via USB, and/or a simple MP3 player, also to be fed via USB. No cloud stuff, no network.
Sounds a lot like the minimal phones that exist these days. Some of them really just call and text. Some are a bit nicer since they have navigation and a simple distraction free browser.
If you were to use only 2G and disable mobile data, it should last several days.
Sure, but 2G networks don’t exist anymore. Even 3G is being phased out.
And that’s why this whole idea is getting increasingly unrealistic. The world has moved on, and there’s no going back. But in theory, it should still be possible to get amazing battery life with modern chips and batteries. You would also need to change the phone grid to make that dream fully come true.
seriously. i want a modern phone with extremely long battery life without being insanely heavy.
A have a few years old cheap android phone whose only job is to use a couple apps that refuse to work on LineageOS. I charge it every couple weeks. No sim, but constantly connected to wifi.
