Even though Nokia is largely an afterthought in the phone market now, there was a time when their products represented the state-of-the-art in mobile devices. Some of the their handsets even featured slide-out keyboards and the ability to sent emails; largely unheard of for a device from the late 90s. [befinitiv] was a kid back then and couldn’t afford one of these revolutionary devices, so he built his own modern version that still looks and feels like the original.
To do this he borrowed the case and structure of a Nokia 5110 phone, but modified it to hold a small Android device in the old battery compartment along with a tiny Bluetooth keyboard (which was also built from scratch by [befinitiv]) that connects to the Android phone to mimic the old slide-out style. This isn’t just a case mod, though. He also reverse-engineered the original PCB of the phone and included a Bluetooth module there as well, which allows the phone’s screen and keypad to work mostly as originally intended.
This project goes pretty far to scratch the 90s phone nostalgia itch while still being largely usable as a real phone in the modern world. Assuming you aren’t too hung up on the literal phone aspect, the Notkia project is also an impressive effort to bring new life to these old handsets.
Back in the days i was quite happy with Nokia 9300i. It fit in the pocket nicely, had qwerty keyboard, relatively wide screen, wifi, decent SSH client and semi-decent web browser i beleive even flash player was working correctly. Biggest issue was that it needed annoying adaptor to connect 3.5mm earphone jack. I’ve buyed it second hand for very nice price in 2016 or so, but after few years of use the battery swelled and cracked the cover that was holding it in. So i’ve buyed T-Mobile G1 instead and i’ve been using Android phones since then.
Google thinks this is “garlic toast on fire” which I’m not convinced is entirely wrong.
I heard you like phones, so I put a phone in your phone. Now you can phone other phones and talk about phones.
For the people who are looking for the crucial info not present in the video, link or article, here’s the model of the phone used in this project : Soyes XS11 Mini
It makes me lol when I see the Samsung Pocket and Samsung Galaxy Star. I’ve often thought of putting a wrist strap on them because that is all a “smart watch” is anyway. But these are full phones with smart watch sized screens.
I refuse to smart watch until it is standardized in the Android OS. I’m not letting Samsung gear run, even though it annoyingly installs itself sometimes when I use my earbud. I’m definitely not running some weird out of date Chinese app for my Lenovo smart watch. I never paired it to my phone for this reason. Until it just works with the OS its a half-baked joke.
This hack seems pretty cool, nokia with a keyboard always makes me think of Val Kilmer XD
It must be a slow day in the news for hack a day today.
wdym, its just a funny project and if you watch the video you can tell he actually put in a little more effort then what you see at first glance.
If you want Hackaday to report on ‘cooler stuff’, how about you make some cool stuff and send it in?
Now this is a hack! In fact it’s more like 2 or 3 hacks. Watch the video! Bonus: if mugged no-one is going to want it!
Hell, I thought it was a “New” Nokia phone…
Now quick load up Excel and try and message Nelly
We see so many phones with qwerty keyboards on here, it’s a shame that the big phone manufacturers are too busy trying to remove ports, buttons and make their phones 0.1mm thinner. Maybe they would get the message that people want proper keyboards?
This is definitely a cool hack though!