IT’S BACK!

20 LIFE&STYLE THURSDAY 2 MARCH 2017
CITYAM.COM
TECHNOLOGY
EDITED BY STEVE HOGARTY
: @city_am
:@cityamlife
The retro
revolution
This year’s Mobile World Conference
was a blast from the past. Here are the
biggest new product announcements
NOKIA 3310
AROUND £40
NOKIA.COM
This unexpected reboot of Nokia’s iconic late 90s handset blew the minds of every 30-
something year old at MWC. Made by HMD (the Finnish startup that bought the rights to the
Nokia name) this homage to the 3310 roughly mimics the original design while making a
few concessions to modernisation. The 2.4-inch screen has a defiantly retro 240 x 320
resolution to work with, while a modest 2MP camera has been added to the phone’s rear.
Touted to cost around £40, expect the 3310 to become the burner phone of choice for
London’s most wistfully nostalgic drug dealers.
BLACKBERRY KEYONE
$549
BLACKBERRYMOBILE.COM
With Nokia now confidently
strutting about the place like it’s
still 1998, it’s the turn of the
festering corpse of Blackberry to
offer up something from their
mobile mausoleum.
The Blackberry KeyOne brings
back the famed physical
keyboard, which now doubles
as a trackpad and cleverly hides
a fingerprint sensor. Aiming to
corner the dwindling market of
people who couldn’t quite
manage the transition to onscreen
typing, and are also very
paranoid, the Blackberry
KeyOne also comes with a slew
of top-level security features.
HUAWEI P10
€649
HUAWEI.COM/UK
The new flagship from Chinese giant
(not literally) Huawei, the P10 makes
some incremental improvements
over the two-year-old P9 – though
perhaps not enough to convince
anybody to upgrade. A few cosmetic
changes have been made, most
notably the relocated fingerprint
sensor now situated on the phone’s
front, around where you’d expect the
home button to be. The all-metal
unibody design also comes with some
special “dazzling” finishes, designed to
make the handset stand out from afar
like some alluring metallic nymph.
There’s a larger Plus model too, with a
vibrant UHD screen that puts the regular
size version to shame.
LG G6
£TBA
LG.COM/UK
The modular design of last year’s LG
G5 meant you could, in theory,
replace the phone’s battery pack
with beefier speakers, a new camera
or other enhancements. In practice,
the phone never took off, the
modular parts were deemed silly
and never materialised. So, in the
time-honoured tradition of giving
up, the newly announced LG G6
abandons the idea of a modular
phone completely, and instead
refocuses the company’s efforts on
creating an extremely good phone
that stays in one piece. The bezel
has been all but eliminated too,
creating a phone that looks like
it’s entirely made of screen.
NOKIA 6
$315
NOKIA.COM
Perhaps the real reason for the new
3310’s existence is to draw attention
back towards the languishing Nokia
brand, as alongside the retro-phone,
Finnish newcomer HMD is launching
three new modern Nokia handsets.
They’re a set of mid-range, lowprice
devices, unlikely to set the
world ablaze but decent quality.
The Nokia 6 is the most powerful
of the bunch, with a 5.5-inch,
1080p screen and beefy specs for
the cost. Made from a single block
of aluminium, it’s a nice object to
hold, and likely a dry run for a
yet-to-be-announced high-end
Nokia flagship.
SAMSUNG BOOK
£TBA
SAMSUNG.COM
Samsung sets its sights on potential Microsoft Surface customers
with its latest tablet-cum-ultrabook. While memories of the TabPro
S still linger like a bad smell, the Korean company has gone back to
the drawing board on this one and the result is impressive.
With a detachable backlit keyboard
(complete with feedback as you type), a
Super AMOLED display (for the bigger
version), a brand new stylus and some
serious hardware under the hood,
this is a real contender for your
money. It comes in 10.6 and 12 inch
versions, with the smaller one
measuring just 7.4mm thick.
PORSCHE DESIGN BOOK ONE
$2,495
PORSCHE-DESIGN.COM
Porsche Design, the company set up in 1972 by Ferdinand Alexander
Porsche after the car manufacturer went public, has put its name to
products ranging from tennis racquets to headphones. One of
its less wise moves was a collaboration
with beleaguered phone-maker
Blackberry, but that hasn’t stopped
Porsche Design from working with
Microsoft to create the Design Book
One, a re-skinned, souped up
version of the Microsoft Surface
Book. The headline design flourish
is a 360 degree hinge that allows
you to effortlessly switch from
tablet to laptop mode. It’s a
beautiful, powerful device, albeit
a ludicrously expensive one.