Here’s a blast from the past: Nokia’s 8210, the phone featured prominently in Charlie’s Angels, is back! To say I’m getting a nostalgia kick would be an understatement.
I’ve got its theme song, Destiny’s Child’s Independent Women, going through my head and I’m remembering the video where Kelly Rowland used, er, Microsoft Excel to make a booty call to Nelly. Fun times – and now you can relive them with Nokia’s latest retro phone. On the outside, it’s the Nokia 8210, one of the best phones of the 2000s. But on the inside, it’s much more modern.
It’s important to stress that this isn’t a smartphone, and with a price tag of just £64.99, you wouldn’t expect it to be. Instead, it’s the kind of phone Nokia used to be legendary for: bomb-proof build, incredible battery life and that all-important FM radio.
Nokia 8210 4G: what’s new?
As you’ve probably guessed from the “4G” in the phone’s name, this isn’t your mum’s Nokia. It has 4G and VoLTE tech inside for high quality calling, wireless as well as wired FM radio, a microSD-compatible MP3 player for more mobile music and of course, Snake. It’ll sit in standby mode for weeks on end, and there’s a basic camera that might not be up there with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra but that’s way better than any of the cameras we had back in the day.
I really like this phone. It’s not going to replace my iPhone 13, but it isn’t really for that. It’s a festival phone, a travelling phone, a phone for when you need to be in touch with people but don’t want to be tempted to doomscroll and make yourself miserable when you’re supposed to be having fun. And if it’s anything like the Nokias I used to own, if you drop it on the floor you’ll break the floor.
The Nokia 8210 4G is available from today in three colours: Blue, Red and Sand. The blue one’s a very dark colour and the Sand one reminds me very much of my Nokia 3210, which I’m horrified to discover came out 23 years ago. But it’s the red one I’d go for here: I think it’s the most retro of the three colours, and that means it’s the one that most appeals to me.
All together now: Charlie, how your angels get down like that…
