If the Nokia 5110 hasn’t already taken over your office or your local pub, just give it a week. Released in 1998, this is the phone that has turned the mobile from a boring business tool into a legitimate fashion accessory. The secret? “Xpress-on” covers. For the first time, you can pop off the front of your phone and swap it for a vibrant yellow, a metallic silver, or even a cheeky hand-painted design. It’s brilliant marketing; Nokia has realised that we’re all vain, and we want our phones to match our trainers.
But underneath the colorful plastic, the 5110 is a serious bit of kit. It’s the consumer-grade cousin of the business-focused 6110, sharing the same DCT3 platform and 13 MHz ARM7 processor. The display is a clear 84 x 48 pixel monochrome LCD that can show five lines of text, making SMS, or “texting” as everyone’s calling it now, an absolute breeze. It features the Navi-Key system pioneered by the 3110, but the real star of the software is a little game called Snake. It is arguably the most addictive thing to hit the UK since the Pot Noodle. You will spend hours trying to steer a pixelated line into a pixelated dot, and you will love every second of it.
The 5110 is also a battery powerhouse. With the standard 900 mAh NiMH battery, you’re looking at up to 270 hours of standby, nearly two weeks!. It’s a bit thick at 31mm, and the antenna still pokes out, but the sheer durability of this thing is legendary. It feels like you could use it to hammer in a nail and then use it to call for more nails. It lacks the infrared port and the calendar of the 6110, but at a much more affordable price point on a standard Vodafone or Orange contract, the 5110 is the phone that is officially bringing the mobile revolution to the masses.