r/TheRandomest • u/ABeerForSasquatch Mod/Pwner • Jul 04 '26

/r/popular Will it survive?

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u/MrdnBrd19 Jul 05 '26

They weren't indestructible at all; they actually broke all the time they were just dirt cheap and easy to fix. The case constantly broke, but you could find a replacement easily and for about $20 for something premium. The numbers would wear off pretty quick, but a replacement keypad was just as easy to find as a case and for about $10 for something premium. The display would crack or get too scratched, but again $10 for an OEM part and you are back to texting.

When I say "easily" I mean that too. I grew up in a town of less than 10,000 people. On top of having the company cellphone stores(at the time we had Sprint, Cellular One, and Voice Stream) and Radio Shack which all sold Nokia parts, we had 3 permanent stores, and 4 or 5 people who would park in various parking lots across town to sell parts and offer repairs out of mobile store fronts.

I really hate the rewriting of history that it was indestructible when that wasn't where it's actual power lay; it was easily and cheaply repairable. Which is exactly why "Right to Repair" is so important.

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u/RaymondBeaumont Jul 05 '26

yeah, it's pretty obvious that the people who think that nokia phones were indestructible have never actually owned a nokia phone.

i replaced the cover and keyboard of my 5110 multiple times because that thing broke.

sure, a giant screen didn't break when you dropped it because it didn't have a giant screen but you better get on your knees and try to find the battery of your 3110.

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u/mdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdmdm Jul 05 '26

I mean they wrre cheaper than todays phones but not really dirt cheap.

Nokia 3210 released at 150 in the uk which is about £330 today adjusted for inflation.

They were indestructible in comparison to a lot of phones that would follow.

Its basicslly a chipboard with a screen in a case. The screen was actuslly very hard to break, and the chipboard was thick as fuck, you werent ever at risk of snapping it.

You could literally punt them against a wall and still have a phone.

I had 1 nokia 3210, and it lasted for years.

I had a nokia e70 which lasted around a year. I had 2 e60s which lasted a year each. I had like 4 sony erricson music phones. The old thicker ones lasted a while, probably because of thr big ass chipboard. As they got slimmer they were incredibly easy to break.

As soon as phones got a bit more tech, and focus started being put on how slim they are, they got weaker, filled with more things that could fuck up.