Nokia’s famous reimagined banana slider phone from The Matrix movie franchise–Nokia 8110 made a debut at MWC 2018. The throwback phone isn’t as crippled as the 2G-only Nokia 3310 introduced the year before, boasting 4G LTE connectivity as well as a host of Google services and mainstream apps like Facebook and Twitter. One app was glaringly missing, though: WhatsApp, possibly the most requested app by users. Until now.
Yes, it’s taken a while. However, HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, announced on Thursday that WhatsApp is now available on the Nokia 8110 via the Nokia KaiOS Store. For further info, read the WhatsApp FAQ.
To recap, the Nokia 8110 sports a 2.45-inch QVG display housed in a polycarbonate shell. It resembles the original, but build quality is obviously less robust, considering its price point.
Under the hood, it is powered by the dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 205 processor coupled with 512GB RAM. There’s 4GB of internal storage with support for microSD storage expansion (up to 64GB).
If you’re wondering if it runs some variation of Android, the answer is no. Instead, the iconic banana phone runs KaiOS, a web-based mobile operating system based on Linux.
That said, it’s Google-backed, so it comes with Google Search, Google Maps and Google Assistant. It also comes bundled with Facebook and Twitter, out-of-the-box. Let’s not forget the legendary (revamped) Snake game. The Nokia AppStore provides you access to more apps.
Connectivity-wise, the Nokia 8110 supports 3G/4G with built-in GPS, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. It even supports VoLTE for HD voice calls.
The dual-SIM phone packs a removable 1,500mAh battery that charges via micro-USB. That sounds puny by today’s standards but let’s not forget this is a feature phone. Nokia claims a full charge will give you 25 days of battery life on standby mode, or about nine days of talktime.
The Nokia 8110 is available in Traditional Black and Banana Yellow.
The phone is available at all Nokia authorised dealers nationwide or Nokia’s Official Store on Lazada at just MYR299.
