The joys of the Nokia 3310

I’m eager to order a Nokia 3310, the classic mobile phone of the millennium that was relaunched this week. The original was famed for its simple functions, unbreakable casing and ultra-long battery life; my earlier 3210 was just as good. I lost it on a coach trip 15 years ago and haven’t been truly happy since, having never learned to love my iPhone. But what’s more interesting about this revival is what it tells us about the turbulent evolution of the mobile device market, as well as the curious history of Nokia itself.

Nokia is Finland’s contribution to corporate parable. Having started in 1865 as a smalltown wood-pulp mill, it diversified into manufacturing galoshes and generating electricity, then into telecoms equipment — and emerged from the frozen forests in the 1990s as the global market leader of ‘2G’ mobile technology.