Nearly a month after being spotted on TENAA, the long-awaited 4G variant of the Nokia 3310 classic feature phone has now been officially launched in China.
HMD Global, the new parent company of the Nokia brand, has silently listed the new handset on the official Nokia website in China along with the specs and images of the device. It has partnered with China Mobile to make the handset available in the country, but there's no official word yet on the price and availability of the device.
Meanwhile, the price and availability details of the new Nokia 3310 4G variant are expected to be announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 event which will be held in Barcelona, Spain in February.
Also read: After Nokia 3310, HMD is bringing several other budget phones back from the dead
The Nokia 3310 4G is the third and upgraded variant of the modern Nokia 3310 feature phone that was launched at Mobile World Congress last year in the 2G avatar. HMD Global also launched a 3G variant of the Nokia 3310 in the second half of 2017.
Unlike, the Nokia 3310 2G that was powered by Nokia Series 30+ OS and Nokia 3310 3G which debuted with Java-based Feature OS, the 4G variant of the Nokia 3310 runs a special operating system called Yun OS, which is a forked version of Android developed by Chinese technology-giant Alibaba. The phone also comes with a built-in MP3 Player.
Nokia 3310 4G Specifications
In terms of the specifications, the Nokia 3310 4G is slightly different compared to the earlier variants. Design-wise it sports the same 2.4-inch QVGA colour display with a resolution of 320x240 pixels, but the 4G variant now comes with either 256MB or 512MB of internal storage compared to the 32MB storage available on the 2G variant and 64MB on the 3G variant. The device also supports expandable memory via microSD cards up to 64GB.
As for the camera, the Nokia 3310 4G retains the 2MP primary sensor on the rear along with LED Flash. The handsets also packs the same 1200mAh battery that Nokia claims can deliver up to 12 days of standby time on 4G VoLTE networks and up to 16 hours of continuous music playback on a single charge.
Connectivity options include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 801.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Micro USB for data transfer and charging and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The handset offers only a single SIM slot.
The Nokia 3310 4G comes has initially been launched in just two colour options: Fresh Blue and Deep Black, but more colours are expected to be added in the coming days.
When will it come to India?
As mentioned earlier, the pricing and global availability details of the Nokia 3310 4G are yet to be announced. HMD Global is expected to announce them at the upcoming MWC 2018 event next month. However, going by the past, the Nokia 3310 2G was launched in India in May 2017, almost three months after its official launch at MWC 2017 in February. So it is likely that the 4G variant too might be launched around the same time this year.
Meanwhile, it is still not known whether HMD Global plans on bringing the device to India. But, considering that HMD Global hasn't launched the 3G variant of Nokia 3310 in India, it is expected that it will launch the 4G variant instead in the country.
Now that the Nokia 3310 comes with support for modern 4G networks, it will be compatible with 4G-Only networks like Reliance Jio and might also become a worthy contender to the Reliance JioPhone.
Source: Nokia Power User
