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Comment by jtchang | Hacker News Reader

Can we talk about the Nokia 8210 candybar phones? Circa 1999 this thing was indestructible and had battery life that would probably outlast 3-4 iPhones.

I think there is a market for these types of phones again. Even if it was ugly it was durable and functional. There is definitely a market for a phone that can be dropped and still function.

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Since the 8210 didn't really have a working web-browser (by modern standards) or legitimate animations, you could likely make a 8210 today with an eInk display and also take advantage of the battery tech' improvements.

At the time it only had a 650 mAh battery. And while it is a very small phone, similarly small phones today can easily get double that in the same physical dimensions.

So I guess what I am saying is, if someone actually made a 8210 today and REALLY tried they could likely double its already insane battery life.

At what price?

I had a Nokia 6310i when I was younger, and on average (short calls, a few texts per day) the battery would last for 2 weeks. It had a small (but perfectly formed) black and white screen, a distinct lack of apps, and no 3G. All helps.

Interestingly, the claimed talk time, at 7 hours, was no better, and in fact possibly a bit worse, than a modern iPhone. Draw your own conclusions.

Modern Nokia feature phones get battery life of 2-5 weeks depending on talk time. I use one.

I just bought a Nokia 105 for about $16 after my 6320 finally died, and I'm quite happy with it.

Battery lasts for ages, I'm not afraid to drop it, I don't get distracted by social apps and notifications all the time, and it just works.

I get nostalgic for my HP-41CV RPN programmable calculator. It had a printer as a peripheral! And a magnetic card reader, and an optical wand. It's a totemic device for me.

But I don't think there is a market for either my old calculator, or candy bar phones, outside of nostalgic ebay purchases.

I take your point on the calculator, but as others have mentioned, the Nokia branded candybar phones of current production are doing rather well actually. People are buying them.

The HP48G runs on my android as a free app. I use it daily.

Do you think there would be a market for a new dumb phone that had modern things likes contact syncing and threaded text messaging? I feel like a lot of existing feature phones would be great but they're just not that usable.

A few years ago, I bought a Samsung quad-band flip phone for about $50. The battery lasted nearly two weeks with light usage.

If you just need a reliable phone, I'm sure they're still out there.

> battery life that would probably outlast 3-4 iPhones.

And functional life as well. iOS 8 crippled A5 devices which had previously chugging along quite decently. Planned obsolescence sucks (in iDevices' case, it also affects present performance, i.e. Safari constantly having to reload tabs because the device has little RAM to spare). Unlike a smartphone, a simpler device won't be reduced to be unable to perform its more basic functionality decently a few years down the road...

You don't have to upgrade to iOS 8. Similarly, the 8210 wouldn't have had software upgrades, which naturally would be geared towards newer devices and cause the device to also slow down.

Security confounds that strategy unless you're planning to stop using data once an exploit is discovered which won't be patched on the old OS, which in this case happened the day iOS 8 shipped.

Upgrading is compulsory for many apps, such as Whatsapp.

My Nokia 3120 phone can do a week or so between charges quite easily, and is very small. It has a paygo sim in it with £10 of credit for emergencies and sits in the kitchen drawer.

As others have mentioned, the new Nokia branded basic phones have good battery lifetimes, although the build quality is basic and I find the buttons quite plasticky

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