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Nokia's Banana Phone From The Matrix is Back (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the this-is-bananas dept.

The Verge: Back in 1999, Keanu Reeves was famous for playing Neo in The Matrix, and not for looking sad on a bench. Nokia was also the "world's leading mobile phone supplier" back then, and it used this popularity to feature its Nokia 8110 "banana phone" in The Matrix film. At the time everyone who considered themselves cool (definitely me) wanted a Nokia phone just like Neo's, but most of us had to settle for the Nokia 7110 with its spring-loaded slider. Now HMD, makers of Nokia-branded phones, is bringing the Nokia 8110 back to life as a retro classic . Just like the Nokia 3310 that was a surprise hit at Mobile World Congress last year, the 8110 plays on the same level of nostalgia. The slightly curved handset has a slider that lets you answer and end calls, and HMD is creating traditional black and banana yellow versions. The Nokia 8110 runs on the Smart Feature OS, so this is a basic featurephone and you're not going to get access to the Android apps found on other Nokia Android smartphones. The Nokia 8110 will be available in May for just 79 euros ($97).

4 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. It's the best, beats the rest by scourfish · · Score: 3, Funny

    cellular, modular, interactive-odular

  2. Yeah, not so much by nathana · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is not so much a recreation of the Nokia 8110 that was in the movie as it is an "homage". It's a completely new, designed-from-the-ground-up piece of hardware (AND software) that just happens to bear a resemblance to the original and takes some design cues from it.

    Not only that, but neither the original 8110 nor this new version actually have a button-triggered, spring-loaded release for the keypad cover. That was something designed specifically for the movie, and IIRC the phones in the movie were not even functional: they were props that had been gutted of any real functionality and then fitted with the spring-loaded mechanism which, given the era, was impossible to fit into the phone while leaving the actual phone guts intact.

    There was a Nokia model, the 7110, that actually had a spring-load keypad cover that vaguely resembled what we saw in the movie, though it was not as "exciting".

    -- Nathan

    1. Re:Yeah, not so much by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is not so much a recreation of the Nokia 8110 that was in the movie as it is an "homage". It's a completely new, designed-from-the-ground-up piece of hardware (AND software) that just happens to bear a resemblance to the original and takes some design cues from it.

      Yes, it's quite different in many ways. Obviously the connectivity is different, because most phone companies no longer support GSM 900 with SSMS gateways.
      But they have taken some shortcuts elsewhere too, like the buttons, which are way different from the original, and not in a good way.
      Then there's the lack of a changeable battery with external charger, which was one of the big selling points: you could continue to use the phone while another battery charged.
      And, perhaps the biggest cheap shortcut is that the microphone is not in the slider, where it can be put in front of your mouth, but is on the phone itself. That completely ruins the advantage the 8110 had over all other phones in that you could put the mic in front of your mouth, like with a real phone. Especially for people with full beards (this is slashdot, right?), this makes quite a difference.
      I'd say the slider mic is the defining feature of the 8110, and replacing it with just a sliding lid completely misses the entire point of having the slider in the first place.

  3. Re:Whoah by Falos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    iirc red pill was for tracking your 3D meat body, perhaps like a radioisotope tracer but with brainwaves, then they can locate your connection/battery pod.

    Blue probably knocks you out, which might prevent the effort of the wake-up hack, not unlike your remote machine going to sleep. Or maybe they can unplug you anyway. It might also be a short-term memory wipe, for whatever grade of hollywood amnesia dust.

    It might be a question of time-until-effect, or effect duration. Or maybe the question wasn't serious to begin with and I wasted keystrokes while waiting for quitting time.