The Nokia 110 4G costs just 40 euros and is currently the cheapest LTE phone in Germany alongside the Nokia 105. However, the cell phone is not suitable for much more than telephony and SMS. Despite the high nostalgia factor, you quickly reach your limits in everyday life. Much more capable feature phones and smartphones are not much more expensive.
Table of contents
- 1 Unboxing almost like in the 1990s
- Technical data at a glance
- An iPhone 12 Pro Max or 40 Nokia 110
- The myth of the indestructible cell phone
- The setup is done quickly
- A journey through time in terms of operation
- When suddenly all contacts are gone
- The “apps” of the Nokia 110
- Browser in quarter-quarter VGA resolution
- MP3 player recognizes large memory cards
- FM- Radio without headphones
- Games just to try out
- Telephoning with VoLTE in the 4G network
- Typing SMS with T9
- WhatsApp and Co. are completely outside before
- Conclusion
Not every new mobile phone is automatically a smartphone these days. Nokia continues to offer so-called feature phones, which master the basics in areas such as telephony, SMS and, in some cases, the Internet and apps. Nokia 105 4G and 110 4G are at the bottom of this class at Nokia and are offered for correspondingly low prices: 35 and 40 euros. The more expensive of the two models comes with a camera and MP3 player, but the real specialty of both versions is something else: support for LTE and VoLTE, i.e. making calls in the 4G network. A look at the price comparison reveals that the Nokia 105/110 is the cheapest current phone with LTE support – with the exception of the outdated Sony Xperia E3 and the Nokia Lumia 635/640. But how sensible is it to buy such a spartan feature phone like the Nokia 110 nowadays?
Unboxing almost like in the 1990s
Unpacking brings back memories of a time at the end of the 1990s, when a Nokia 3210 ushered in the personal mobile phone age for its 14th birthday. Because even with the Nokia 110, the phone and battery are separate in the box – the battery is packed in a small plastic bag as it used to be. And the power supply unit also exudes nostalgia with a permanently connected cable. The micro-USB port is more contemporary, but no longer up-to-date. The packaging also includes wired headphones (3.5 mm jack) with a microphone at chest height on the cable and operating instructions – but only in Vietnamese on the test device. How the back is removed or the battery, SIM and memory cards are inserted is also explained sufficiently by the pictures. Nokia has informed the editors that this fact only applies to the loaner device. Devices offered in this country should be delivered with a German manual. The market launch is planned for the course of the third quarter.
Overview of technical data
Nokia 105 4G Nokia 110 4G software:
(when released) Series 30+ Display: 1.80 inches, 120 × 160
111 ppi
LCD Operation: Physical keyboard SoC: Unisoc T107
?
?
?
? GPU:? RAM:? Memory: – (expandable) 1. Camera: No 0.1 MP 2. Camera: No 3. Camera: No 4. Camera: No 5. Camera: No 1. Front camera: No 2. Front camera: No GSM: GPRS + EDGE UMTS: Yes LTE: Yes 5G: No WLAN: – Bluetooth: – Location: No Other standards: Micro-USB 2.0, 3.5 mm jack SIM card: Nano-SIM, dual-SIM battery: 1,020 mAh (3 , 80 Wh)
exchangeable Size (W × H × D): 50.0 × 121.0 × 14.50 mm Protection class: – Weight: 80 g 85 g Price: € 34.90 € 39.90
An iPhone 12 Pro Max or 40 Nokia 110
When assembled, the Nokia 110, including SIM and microSD card, weighs exactly 86 g. That is a third of what a currently primarily used iPhone 12 Pro Max (test) with a protective cover weighs (258 g). At 121 × 50 × 14.5 mm (H × W × D), the phone disappears almost invisibly in your pocket; the dimensions of the iPhone are the same as those of an iPad mini. Apropos iPhone: For the price of the top model with 512 GB from Apple there are 40 Nokia 110s (1,600 vs. 40 euros).
The myth of the indestructible cell phone
The assembly of a Nokia 110 is not particularly easy, because the back almost has to be torn off the phone. The small gap on the side of the housing is also fiddly and potentially breaking fingernails. To come back to the Nokia 3210: The back of the Nokia 3210 had a practical mechanism that could easily be released with the thumb. And the Nokia 110 doesn't really continue the myth of the indestructible cell phone. In terms of price, it looks stable enough, but doesn't leave the massive impression of a Nokia 3210 or 3310, which could also be used as a sledge hammer or wheel chock on a 747.
-
Image 1 of 6
< figure> 
Once these first hurdles have been overcome, the setup process can begin. The button to the right of the control pad acts as a power button. Again annoying for the tester: The system languages available for selection are limited to “Auto”, English, Chinese and Vietnamese. A German SIM card has no influence on the language. “Auto” therefore only stands for English in Germany, at least for the test device. At the market launch, however, German will be the system language. The time did not want to update via the cellular network, although the corresponding setting was selected during the initial setup. In the further course of the test (see video) the automatic setting worked.
A journey through time in terms of operation
The setup process is already complete and is therefore much faster than with any Android or iOS smartphone. The Nokia 110 runs with the Series 30+, which was first introduced in 2013, as the operating system and is primarily operated via the control pad, which can be pressed in four directions, with a button in the middle and the buttons around it.
The layout corresponds to Nokia cell phones of the old days and is quickly becoming part of the flesh again despite decades of use of pure touch smartphones. The top left and right buttons are assigned to the “Go to” and “Camera” functions displayed on the screen. “Go to” is a menu with quick access to settings, alarm clock, radio, flashlight, files, calculator and yes, even Snake. Thanks to Classic mode, the gaming experience on the Nokia 3210 can be recreated, except that the snake now continues its way beyond the edge of the screen on the other side. The left call button leads to missed, dialed, received and rejected calls, the right button to volume and switching off.
-
Image 1 of 4
When suddenly all contacts are gone are
The central button in the directional pad opens the main menu, the button to the left starts a new SMS, the button to the right leads to the calendar and the button down to the contacts. The key up is not assigned outside of menus. With calendar and contacts it quickly becomes clear how old school this phone is. You can safely forget about the import from Google or other service providers. Instead, it is important to create local appointments and contacts or to use or import the latter from the SIM card. What a horror it used to be and it still is today to transfer contacts from one cell phone to another. More than the numbers for information, ADAC, emergency calls, telecom service and traffic reports can not be found on the Deutsche Telekom SIM card, which is normally with 5G support in an iPhone 12 Pro Max and there not even the contacts stored on it shows – nice to have seen them again after years.
The “apps” of the Nokia 110
The main menu takes on all other functions and is also home to the “apps” explained in quick access, if you can call them that. This includes the photo gallery, because unlike the Nokia 105, the 110 is equipped with a camera. The small notch delivers only 0.08 megapixels (320 × 240 pixels) and a correspondingly shabby quality. The camera is really only suitable for emergencies, when nothing else serves this purpose. Small advantage: The images only take up an average of 20 KB.
Browser in quarter-quarter VGA resolution
A browser can also be found in the main menu, more precisely Opera Mini. The LTE connection can also be used for surfing, but the experience is a complete disaster. On QQVGA, i.e. quarter QVGA or a quarter of a quarter of the VGA resolution, which corresponds to 160 × 120 pixels on 1.8 inches here, no halfway modern page can be accessed. Even extremely simply designed websites such as Fefes Blog and similar others become a test of patience – not because of the loading times, but because of the operation, which repeatedly requires zooming in and out on the page in order to be able to see and navigate something. The screen of the Nokia 110 is simply far too small and has a resolution far too low for the use of the modern WWW. The browser's death is mainly the flood of cookie banners.
MP3 player recognizes large memory cards
The FM radio and MP3 player are better implemented – the Nokia 110 has the latter exclusively compared to the 105. A microSD memory card is required for this, which according to Nokia can be a maximum of 32 GB. The phone itself only offers 128MB of memory. In the test, however, MP3 files could even be played back without any problems on a 64 GB SanDisk card. It quickly becomes confusing with larger music collections, because the player didn't know what to do with folder structures or M3U playlists.
FM radio without headphones
The FM radio, on the other hand, does not require headphones as a major advantage, which many smartphones use as antennas. The Nokia 110 also indicates (every time) when opening the app that the reception with headphones is better, but basically the radio also works that way. The playback is in extremely mediocre quality via the only built-in loudspeaker for making calls. Alternatively, a 3.5 mm jack can be used, Bluetooth is not supported. Up to 40 stations can be stored, but without names or radio text, but only based on the frequency. The automatic search, which unearthed 20 stations in Berlin, is practical. Nokia specifies 36 hours of playing time for the FM radio.
Games only to try out
There are also games, but only Snake is recommended because it is the only full version on the mobile phone. Games such as Arrow Master and Racing Attack are available as trial versions and want to be activated for 1.99 euros plus the price of an SMS. There is even a kind of “app store” for games, which houses a list of other titles that can be purchased using the same method, including Doodle Jump, Crossy Road, Tetris and Football Cup – each for 1.99 euros plus SMS.
Telephoning with VoLTE in the 4G network
Apart from a bit of multimedia and a game or two, the Nokia 110 is primarily designed for two areas: Telephony and SMS. The special feature is the support of the LTE network with dual SIM and dual standby on bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 20. Apart from band 28 at 700 MHz, for example Vodafone for LTE and 5G via DSS uses in rural areas, the most important frequencies of the three German network operators are supported. VoLTE (Voice over LTE), i.e. making calls with a higher voice quality over the LTE network, is also finding its way. The data traffic, although this hardly occurs with the Nokia 110, also flows via the 4G network (there is no WLAN). This is important in view of the recent 3G shutdown at Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone. For Telefónica customers, the shutdown will be completed in the course of the year. In the test, the phone was used with a Telekom SIM card. The network was found quickly and LTE and VoLTE were immediately active without any further manual settings.
Type SMS with T9
The Nokia 110 covers messaging with SMS – and really only SMS. Nostalgia arises not only with the Short Message Service itself, but also when typing the short messages. Because after years with touch smartphones, on-screen keyboards and swipe keyboards, it is now time to get the old T9 knowledge out of the basement again. The euphoria was quickly gone, however, because the test device only came with an English dictionary. The mobile phone turned the T9 key combination for “Where do we want to meet?” Into a jumble of letters: “yo woken zip top treeden?”. The Nokia 110 mastered the same sentence in English with T9. The manufacturer says that there will also be a German T9 dictionary at market launch.
In the test, the much faster typing with T9 had to be dispensed with and instead each letter had to be laboriously selected individually. Even short text messages became a test of patience and were hardly worth typing, because a short call was quicker – as long as you have the contact's number at hand, because it has to be manually transferred to the cell phone. In terms of sending and receiving, SMS worked smoothly in the test. This also applies to automatically sent short messages, for example from systems for two-factor authentication.
WhatsApp and Co. are completely excluded
Because the Nokia 110 comes with the Series 30+ operating system, modern messengers are completely left out. Nokia also has feature phones with the Firefox OS-based KaiOS in its range, such as the 6300 or 8000, which are equipped with Google apps such as Maps, Assistant and YouTube, but above all with WhatsApp. These devices can then also be used to take part in everyday communication with family and friends. Because as nostalgic as the whole thing may be, “nobody” uses SMS anymore – even older people are active in family groups on WhatsApp.
Conclusion
After all, who is a phone like the Nokia 110 for? It can serve as a second or third cell phone; a phone that is turned off in the backpack and is only activated in emergencies. The 1,020 mAh/3.8 Wh battery, depending on single or dual SIM use, is suitable for 18/13 days with 2G, for 14/11 days with 3G and for 14/12 days with 4G in standby Operation designed. The manufacturer specifies the talk times as 16 hours for 2G, 6 hours for 3G and 5 hours for 4G.
The telephone is also potentially an option for children, as a handful of the most important contacts for calling are stored locally. For a trip to the lake or a hiking tour, if you don't want to distract yourself with social media and Co. and just want to enjoy nature, but still want to be accessible, the Nokia 110 can also be the right device. Certain groups of people who only use their cell phone once and then throw it away (“burner phone”) could also be interested.
But joking aside: The Nokia 110 is nostalgic at first, but quickly shows how limiting a feature phone of the absolute entry-level class is nowadays. 40 euros or even only 35 euros if you do without a camera and MP3 player is not a lot of money, but also not far from devices that can do a lot more. The better feature phones from Nokia, which also offer apps from Google and WhatsApp, start at around 70 euros. And the price comparison shows that halfway current smartphones such as the ZTE Blade A3, Gigaset GS110, Alcatel 1B or Nokia 1 Plus also cost around 70 euros. Of course, that's 80 to 100 percent more than a Nokia 105/110 costs, but perhaps for the sake of nostalgia for feature phones these days it is ultimately the better choice.
Nokia 110 4G Smartphones Product Group, July 14th .2021
- price
- VoLTE in the 4G network
- FM radio without headphones
- MP3 player
- Replaceable battery
- memory expandable
- Dual SIM
- 3.5 mm jack
- Coarse small display
- No current messengers
- Browser practically useless
- Fiddly backside
- Many trial apps preinstalled
- No Bluetooth
- No WLAN
ComputerBase loaned the Nokia 110 4G from HMD Global for testing. The manufacturer did not exert any influence on the test report, and there was no obligation to publish it. There was no NDA.
This article was interesting, helpful, or both? The editors appreciate every support from ComputerBase Pro and deactivated ad blockers. More about advertisements on ComputerBase.