Nokia 8110 (1996) vs Nokia 8110 (2018)

Nokia 8110 (1996)

Nokia is of course a familiar name to our readers, but the phones branded “Nokia” today are actually the product of HMD Global who work with Nokia to design and produce phones. The bulk of their output is a series of rather well-regarded and inexpensive Android smartphones along with a range of cheap feature phones. A year ago they caused a stir by launching a reimagined version of the classic Nokia 3310, and this year they are doing it again with a remake of the Nokia 8110.

We’ve covered the Nokia 8110 on Retromobe before, launched in 1996 it gained the somewhat cruel nickname “Banana Phone”, but it was made famous and rather cool when it appeared in The Matrix.

The key feature was the slide-down cover which contained a microphone. This protected the keypad when not in use, and it was meant to make the user’s voice carry better. Nobody had made a phone like this, and it was certainly different from the brick-like handsets of the time. There wasn’t much else going on – it had a small monochrome graphical display, supported GSM voice calls and apart from a neat little desk mount that really was about it.

Fast forward 22 years and the Banana Phone is back, and this time it is actually available in bright yellow as well as a more sober black colour. The new 8110 isn’t a smartphone, but can be considered as an advanced feature phone that is rather interesting under the hood.

The new 8110 looks quite contemporary, taking Nokia’s current styling cues from the rest of the range. On the top is a 2.4” QVGA TFT display which is a pretty familiar feature for this type of device. There’s a 2 megapixel camera with geotagging and a flash on the back and a secondary one for video calling. Inside Is 4GB of storage plus a microSD slot, and there’s a media player and FM radio.

Nokia 8110 (2018)

So far, so much like any other feature phone. But here is where it is unexpected – the 8110 is a 4G LTE device as well as having 3.5G HSPA and 2G support. On top of that the 8110 has WiFi and GPS, and you can use it as a mobile hotspot. The processor is no slouch either, with a dual core 1.1GHz CPU couple with 512MB of RAM which is plenty. The 8110 takes a microSD card and is available in single SIM and dual SIM configurations.

The surprises go on. Unlike most of the current crop of Nokia feature phones, the 8110 ditches the Series 30+ OS and instead uses on operating system called KaiOS. KaiOS is derived from the defunct Firefox OS, and it represents a lightweight and somewhat extensible operating system that makes this feature phone just a little bit smarter. An application store allows access to apps for Google Maps, Facebook and Twitter and the 8110 also syncs with major email systems.

It may not be as sophisticated as a smartphone, but at €79 before tax and subsidy it is a lot cheaper than almost all of those (except the Nokia 1 perhaps). The quoted standby time of 600 hours with 11 hours talktime from the 1500 mAh battery is another attractive feature. This is a device that you can easily carry around alongside your power-hungry smartphone while travelling, for example

Due to hit the shops in April, the 8110 may end up a hit in the same way that the 3310 did, showing that there is some appetite for these practical and rather knowingly retro devices. If you are after an ORIGINAL 8110, then prices are quite healthy at around €150 for unlocked versions in good condition, about twice that of the “new” one. Why not treat yourself to both?

Image credits: Nokia and HMD Global

Nokia 8110 (1996)

Launched September 1996

Back in 1996, most phones were quite brick-like but devices such as the Motorola StarTAC proved that these devices could also be carefully designed to be rather more fashionable. Nokia were probably the biggest adherent to clunky but usable design, so the Nokia 8110 (launched in September 1996) represented a significant change of direction.

The Nokia 8110 was striking for several reasons, firstly it was curved (giving it the rather cruel nickname of "banana phone"), and secondly it was a slider with the keys hidden when they weren't in use. Sliding the guard open would reveal them, and the curved shape of the device placed the microphone directly in front of the user's mouth. To show the 8110 off, you could charge it (and a spare battery) in a desk mount.

Physically it was a remarkable device, but the Nokia 8110 also found fame in the move The Matrix where a modified version appears in a crucial sequence. Although in reality the 8110 wasn't spring-loaded, the follow-on Nokia 7110 was.

Despite the clever design, underneath this was a very simple device by modern standards with a monochrome dot-matrix screen plus SMS and an advanced SMS-based information system that nobody ever used. With an add-on data card you could send faxes and email at a blazing 9600 bits per second.

Ultimately it was looks rather than ergonomics that made the 8110 a success, but despite several devices featuring the same lines over the years, ultimately customers seemed to prefer handsets that were flat. The Nokia 8110 (and revised 8110i) are highly collectible, with prices ranging from €25 or to up to €3000 for an unused one in mint condition. Median prices for good examples seem to be €120 to €500 or so.

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 (1996)

Released August 1996

Twenty years ago this month if you were using a Windows PC then it was probably the new fangled Windows 95 (launched 1995) or clunky Windows 3.1 (launched 1992). But popular as these operating systems were, they were ultimately a dead-end as Microsoft continued to develop its new Windows NT platform which reached a significant milestone in August 1996 with the general release of Windows NT 4.0.

Although Windows 3.1 and 95 were popular, fundamentally they were a horrible kludge built on top of Microsoft's ancient MS-DOS operating system. Although Windows 95 looked good, underneath everything was creaking and the whole edifice had a tendency to fall over. Often. While this was perhaps acceptable for home users, it certainly didn't equate to the stable and reliable systems needed for business.

Windows NT had been developed in parallel with the consumer versions of Windows and despite sharing a similar interface to consumer versions, it was fundamentally a different operating system underneath. Designed to be a modern operating system, it was a full 32-bit affair with proper multitasking, multiuser capabilities, security, multiprocessor support and the ability to run on a range of different processors rather than just Intel. Inspired more by the operating systems on mainframes and minicomputers (especially VMS), Windows NT could potentially run anything at more-or-less any scale that you wanted.

The initial versions of Windows NT had a Windows 3.1-style interface and made very little impact on the corporate desktop world (although they started to make inroads into the server market). But Windows NT 4.0 was much improved and perhaps most importantly it came with a Windows 95-style interface that made it very usable and modern. Along with proper networking support and authentication handling, system policies and the potential for rock-steady reliability on the right hardware it rapidly became the standard operating system for larger businesses.

One major problem was that Windows NT 4.0 was essentially a server operating system shoehorned into a desktop. There was no plug-and-play support for peripherals, and NT 4.0 never supported USB either and hardware support overall was limited. Although these limitations were OK on the fleets of Compaq, HP and Dell machines corporates were using, it made for a pretty unsatisfying experience on a laptop.
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Laptop users really struggled with unplugging or plugging in anything reliably with Windows NT 4.0, but users with Windows 95 and the much improved Windows 98 could do these things with ease.. they could also use new-fangled things such as USB peripherals and even WiFi. With laptop market share growing rapidly, it was clear that NT 4.0 didn't cut the mustard.

The next version of Windows NT was Windows 2000 (launched in 2000) which was still aimed at business customers, and this fixed many of the issues. Internally, 2000 was known as "version 5.0", retaining the NT versioning internally. But it was the next version that made all the difference, Windows XP ("version 5.1") which made a huge impact and finally united the consumer and business versions of Windows together (the final successor to Windows 95 was the awful Windows ME).

Today's Windows 10 operating system is still based on Windows NT, and although the interface has gone through radical changes over the years, it still retains the solid foundations that NT 4.0 introduced. And although perhaps not the best-loved Microsoft operating system, it is probably one of the most important.

Image credits [1] [2]

USB - Universal Serial Bus (1996)

In production May 1996

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) hit the market twenty years ago this month. Designed to provide a standard interface for almost every kind of peripheral, this now-ubiquitous feature actually got off to a rocky start.

Twenty years ago, a well-specified PC would have a huge variety of ports. There would be one or two serial ports, typically using a 9-way D-type connector that could be used for mice, modems or some types of printer. A bigger 25-way D-type would act as a parallel printer port, there might be a 15-way D-type for a joystick, one or two PS/2 interfaces for a keyboard and mouse, some system might also feature a SCSI port for attaching an external hard disk, and also some 3.5mm jack plugs for audio input and output. All of those ports could be replaced by USB ports, about the only other ports you would need would be a video port and a network connection.

USB 1.0 hit the market in May 1996, but it was very slow and rather buggy. Operating system support was very sparse with Windows 95 only offering rudimentary support in August 1997 with much better support in Windows 98 in June 1998. The original iMac was the first Apple device to offer USB support in August 1998, which coincided with the release of the much-improved USB 1.1 at the same time.

In 2000 USB 2.0 was launched with data transfer rates of up to 480Mbps. This made it possible to use USB devices as disk drives and ushered in the era of the thumb drive. Subsequent speed increased with USB 3.0 and 3.1 followed in 2008 and 2013 but didn't really make much of a market impact.

It wasn't really until the mid-2000s that legacy ports started to vanish completely from PCs, but finally it did become the de-facto standard for most type of computer peripheral. In 2014 the USB-C standard was launched, which finally added reversible connectors which promised to eliminate the 20-year bugbear of connectors that never seemed to quite fit.

[Image Credit]

Palm Pilot 1000 and 5000 (1996)

Introduced March 1996

Before “always connected” smartphones and tablets, there were PDAs. And for a long time the name synonymous with PDAs was “Palm Pilot”. Twenty years ago this month, the first Palm Pilot devices were launched, the Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000.

With a form factor and weight that was quite similar to a modern smartphone, the Pilot was powered by two AAA batteries that could keep the device in use for weeks. It had a 160 x 160 pixel monochrome display with an area underneath for handwriting recognition (using a stylus) plus some buttons for application control.

Inside was a Motorola 68328 “Dragonball” processor, with 128Kb of RAM for the Pilot 1000 and 512Kb for the 5000 versions. The only connectivity offered was a serial connection to a PC or Mac, allowing data to be synchronised between the two.

The built in applications were pretty basic – a calendar, address book, to-do list and memo taker, but for 1996 that was pretty impressive in a device this small. The basic Pilot 1000 model was $299 in the US, with the 5000 coming in at $369. For a pocket computer, that was pretty good value.. but for a fraction of the price you could buy a Filofax instead, and that was almost infinitely customisable.

Despite its limitations, the Pilot and it successors were a huge success in the late 1990. But rivals such as Nokia had a different vision, and devices such as the original Nokia Communicator combined PDA function with a mobile phone, although without initially gaining much success.

Palm ended up owning the market, and other models followed with improved features, including the ability to sync email which could be read and replied to offline. But it took Palm a long time to understand that people wanted more than a PDA and it wasn’t until 2003 that they released their first smartphone, the PalmOne Treo 600.. and only then because they had bought a rival company called Handspring.

Ultimately, Palm suffered the common fate of tech companies where it helped to define a market and then got left behind. The company’s byzantine history ended in 2011 as part of HP. Today, these original Palm Pilots are uncommon but inexpensive with prices as low as £35 / €32 / $35. Trying to USE one with a modern computer could be tricky, since you’d need an old-fashioned serial port too.. but it might just be worth it for the reaction when you pull one of these ancient devices out of your pocket!

Image credits: Palm

Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996)

Launched March 1996

Everybody knows what a smartphone is, right? A slabby thing which is basically a screen and maybe a couple of buttons on one side, and nothing much on the back other than a camera. But the vision of manufacturers twenty years ago was somewhat different, and the Nokia 9000 Communicator was an example of just how different these things were.

Originally announced in March 1996, the 9000 was a massive device even by the standards of the late 1990s. Weighing a shade under 400 grams or 14 ounces, the Communicator looked like an oversized conventional phone from the outside, but it opened up to reveal a 4.5" 640 x 200 pixel grayscale display and a full QWERTY keyboard. All the Communicator series phones had a tendency to be on the large size, giving them a nickname of "The Brick".

Underneath, the 9000 is even more strange to modern eyes. Inside is a 24MHz i386 processor with 8MB of flash storage, running the GEOS operating system. Despite being called a "Communicator", the options were strictly limited as it lacked any kind of packet data and had to rely on dial-up networking for email or very basic web browsing. There was a Telnet client and some personal information management tools, and one useful feature for any 1990s executive was the fact that the 9000 could send and receive faxes.

Various versions of the 9000 rolled out out in the next two years, making it a niche success against more mainstream rivals such as the Motorola StarTAC. In 1998, Nokia announced the much more compact 9110 Communicator and continued a line of phones that ended in 2007 with the Nokia E90.

Launched more than a decade before the iPhone defined the modern idea of a smartphone, the Communicator series was ultimately a dead end.. but it did show industry watchers that a mobile phone could offer features that rivalled full-blown computers. Thankfully though, we don't have to lug around a 400 gram brick these days..

Image Credits, Nokia and Wikimedia Commons

Motorola StarTAC (1996)

Launched January 1996

Twenty years ago, mobile phones were big brick-like affairs. But in January 1996, Motorola changed people’s perceptions with the Motorola StarTAC clamshell phone – a device that was half the weight of the competition, and which would easily slide into your pocket.

Perhaps the first recognisable clamshell phone, the original GSM StarTAC weighed about 115 grams and set a form factor that became the standard for this type of device. Of course, this being the 1990s, the StarTAC didn’t have much in the way of features, but it was the small size and weight that got all the attention.

Unlike most later clamshell phones, the StarTAC squeezed both the keypad and monochrome screen onto one half of the inside which made everything rather cramped. There was no camera on the outside, but there was an easily removable battery and an extendable antenna.

The StarTAC was available on most networks, including GSM and CDMA plus the old AMPS analogue system. It was also sold in most major markets worldwide, which lead to significant sales. But it wasn’t cheap – originally costing between $1500 to $2000, the StarTAC was more expensive by weight than gold.

Despite the excellent hardware design, the phone was actually rather difficult to use. Motorola’s clumsy and clunky user interface was poorly thought-out, and even though rivals Nokia were still producing more brick-like handsets, they were at least much easier to use. And crucially, those Nokia phones had Snake on as well.

Motorola didn’t really have another hit on the same scale as the StarTAC until it created the RAZR in 2004, a handset which had many of the same innovations and flaws as the StarTAC itself.

Motorola StarTAC (1996)

About 10 years ago, the Motorola StarTAC was probably the coolest mobile phone on the market. In terms of size and weight, the StarTAC closely matches modern clamshell phones, and you could consider the StarTAC as perhaps being the first truly modern mobile phone.

At the time of its launch, the StarTAC made a huge impact. At roughly half the weight of most competing handsets, and in a much more compact size, the StarTAC made headlines, especially in the business press (for example BusinessWeek and Fortune Magazine).  Nobody had ever seen a mobile phone like this before, and it was the first phone that you could easily put in your pocket or clip to a belt and not really notice it.

There were several different models of StarTAC handset, covering both analogue and digital phone networks, including CDMA and GSM versions. Original StarTAC models had a small LED display, although this was later changed to a monochrome LCD panel.

The original StarTAC phone was fearsomely expensive - shortly after launch the full retail price of the StarTAC (without a contract) was somewhere in the region of $1500 to $2000. For a device weighing just 88 grams or 3.1 ounces, the StarTAC was more expensive to buy (by weight) than pure gold.

The StarTAC pictured here is a single-band GSM 900 model, the StarTAC 130 (model MG2-4D11) dating from around 1999. The front of the phone has a quite prominent clip which is the battery cover. Inside, one immediately noticeable feature is that the screen and keypad are all on the lower side of the phone, and the upper half only has the speaker. Compare this with a typical recent clamshell device, and you can immediately see that the StarTAC had a very cramped layout. (Pictured left is the Nokia 6131 alongside the StarTAC).

Despite the stylish black design and diminutive size, the StarTAC was not really very advanced. The StarTAC 130 could handle SMS messaging, it had a small number of mono ringtones to choose from and a basic address book. The user interface was truly horrible to use, a problem that dogged Motorola for many years afterwards. There's also an extendable antenna, which is something you never see these days.. unfortunately, this was quite prone to damage.

Over the five years or so that the various StarTAC models were in production, very little changed in the way of looks, and Motorola didn't produce anything with this much "wow factor" until the RAZR came out several years later. In 2006, PC World magazine named it the number 6 "greatest gadget" in the past 50 years.. there are even companies such as Retrobrick that sell the StarTAC to collectors today.

We have some more pictures of the StarTAC in our gallery.