Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

opsbros.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 142 posts

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#91

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

close04 wrote: post #47
josephernest wrote: post #35

Pro tip: don't buy the new versions "Nokia 3210 2024" and similar models. I did, two times, with slightly different models, and they are of exceptionally poor quality: dead after one year, very buggy firmware. The customer support is an AI with no real answer. They recommended to install an app "from the Google Play app store" which is nonsense for a dumbphone. They are very cheap noname phones, branded with the name…

> They are very cheap noname phones, branded with the name Nokia I thought only HMD [0] had the right to put the Nokia brand on a phone, and had several former Nokia executives in their leadership able to validate whether a device is "worthy" of that brand. Which made sense since Nokia as a company and brand still exist albeit in a different field, and junk branded with this name can tarnish the image. Edit. I see HM…

Corporate quality standards only work if a company is MBA-proof. Something no western company can withstand. Sooner or later, a financial genius will point out the margins that can be made on white label products and it snowballs.

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#92

Post by asdem1 »

sourcepluck wrote: post #78

Are there any not outrageously expensive, tough, battery-goes-for-weeks, does calls and SMS and wifi hotspot and maybe even F-Droid but a small screen, and maybe has at least LTE so that it is safe to be used for years, type devices? I've looked once or twice, and found two categories: one was expensive phones leaning in to the "super slick minimalist" thing, which looked like they could be good devices and cover wha…

It won't go for weeks, but days, and it takes some sideloading and finagling to get certain apk's to work, but I use a Sonim XP3+.

Runs Android Go, big battery that lasts a while, I can use Signal Messenger on it (though not super well), and it's tank-like in its construction. If you want to take that up a notch in terms of build quality, Kyocera sells a similar phone, the Dura XV Extreme+, which is roughly $250.

r/dumbphones is a decent resource. Unsuprisingly, it's not a large community, but it's a good place to get people's anecdotes about specific models.

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#93

Post by stuaxo »

ninjin wrote: post #43
jcul wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I bought a Nokia 2660. After probably a month or so the hinge brackets broke from normal use. Nokia refused to refund / repair it saying that only a drop could have caused it. I replaced it with an AGM M8 which is a great dumbphone.

Thank you both for the warnings. I have been looking for a "dumb" phone and arrived at the Nokia and now I am eyeing up the AGM M8 FLIP Security+ [1] instead. [1]: https://www.agmmobile.com/products/agm-m8-security

Interesting, it has the same stylings as the old Samsung flip phones - which were horrdendous to develop for on J2Me because of various bugs and the tools not giving you any good ways to get debug data from them.

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#94

Post by superkuh »

michalhosna wrote: post #41

> The Nokia 5110 is a 2G telephone, meaning it uses the original 2G mobile network to communicate. This network has long been decommissioned in most western countries, including Australia. In Europe, 3G is shutting down, but 2G as a fallback seems to be staying for years to come. > However, 2G networks were still available as of 2023 in most parts of the world, while notably excluding the majority of carriers in Nort…

Correct. I still use my Nokia 6030 2G phone with T-Mobile in Minnesota/Wisconsin. And it's battery still lasts a week and I can't even feel it in my pocket it's so small. Impossible to destroy too; I've used roughly it since ~2008.

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#95

Post by wolrah »

numpad0 wrote: post #55
apetresc wrote: post #23

I'm not too well-versed in hardware - is it really that easy to swap out a 2G modem with a 4G modem and have it "just work" without touching the drivers? Even if the baseband/modem chips miraculously do conform perfectly to some I/O protocol at the hardware level despite being multiple generations apart, wouldn't the difference in timings break whatever firmware the Nokia 5110 has, which was expecting only a single v…

No, it's like reusing keyboard and monitor for a new PC. This phone uses those parts fully separated from the computer part that the author argues it should be possible to remake just the host computer part to recreate the experience. 4G doesn't even have a proper voice call support, and substitutes that with a carrier grade Discord type thing called VoLTE(oversimplification). Zero chance old firmware could work.

> 4G doesn't even have a proper voice call support, and substitutes that with a carrier grade Discord type thing called VoLTE(oversimplification).

That "carrier grade Discord type thing" is more or less standard SIP VoIP, just over a prioritized data channel similar to how DOCSIS has PacketCable which is more or less MGCP VoIP over a prioritized data channel.

It's absolutely proper voice call support, the majority of calls you make or receive in 2024 have been connected over SIP at some point along the path.

> Zero chance old firmware could work.

The sorts of modules like the author was proposing using can be interacted with over relatively standard AT commands, so it's actually plausible that if there were a separate application processor it might be able to perform basic functions like placing/receiving calls without any firmware changes. The module handles all the VoLTE stuff and just exposes it as if it were any other modem.

That said it's not uncommon for "dumbphone" type applications to run the application code on the baseband processor, in which case obviously it's incredibly unlikely that this new module is even a related family of processor, much less compatible with existing code.

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#96

Post by walterbell »

qiqitori wrote: post #8

The Quectel BG95 is a similar modem chip. If you want to add low-bandwidth connectivity in a project you can just get a BG95 or this Simcom as a devkit and e.g. a 1NCE SIM card, hook up the UART pins to your microcontroller and you're off to go. (You may need a logic level converter in between)

Two annotated board-repair photos for Nokia 6110 / 5110:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YF5WDLLK2nA/RhE6QSReO7I/AAAAAAAAB...

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YF5WDLLK2nA/RhE44SReO6I/AAAAAAAAB...

Disassembly video (2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdhlOlx2gxY

Schematics: https://www.nodevice.com/service-manuals/telephone/nokia/611...

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#97

Post by neilv »

josephernest wrote: post #35

Pro tip: don't buy the new versions "Nokia 3210 2024" and similar models. I did, two times, with slightly different models, and they are of exceptionally poor quality: dead after one year, very buggy firmware. The customer support is an AI with no real answer. They recommended to install an app "from the Google Play app store" which is nonsense for a dumbphone. They are very cheap noname phones, branded with the name…

I tried a Nokia-in-name-only modern dumbphone (a compact one without the retro styling), and it did what I needed, which was mainly SMS 2FA.

Until a manager for a tempting job wanted to do the first call on the phone. The call quality was so bad, it bombed the interview for me. So I kissed my privacy goodbye, and bought an iPhone.

(I've since switched to a GrapheneOS phone, which works well, with less violating.)

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#99

Post by 0_____0 »

shreddit wrote: post #65
0_____0 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible the author didn't expect to have a few thousand Hacker Nerds looking at their blog post already, with all the critique and pressure that entails.

Already? This blog post is from 2 years ago...

Fair enough. My point still stands that they may have been blogging this for themselves or a relatively small number of readers.

I'm reticent to criticize anyone for putting their unfinished or aspirational work up on the internet, it reminds me of a 'net where people hosted their own blogs for mostly noone. Writing destined for a small or non-existent audience feels precious when everything is made to game the attention system.

Re: Nokia 5110 – Back from the Dead (2022)

#100

Post by upofadown »

wolrah wrote: post #95
numpad0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's like reusing keyboard and monitor for a new PC. This phone uses those parts fully separated from the computer part that the author argues it should be possible to remake just the host computer part to recreate the experience. 4G doesn't even have a proper voice call support, and substitutes that with a carrier grade Discord type thing called VoLTE(oversimplification). Zero chance old firmware could work.

> 4G doesn't even have a proper voice call support, and substitutes that with a carrier grade Discord type thing called VoLTE(oversimplification). That "carrier grade Discord type thing" is more or less standard SIP VoIP, just over a prioritized data channel similar to how DOCSIS has PacketCable which is more or less MGCP VoIP over a prioritized data channel. It's absolutely proper voice call support, the majority of…

>That "carrier grade Discord type thing" is more or less standard SIP VoIP, just over a prioritized data channel...

It is completely restricted to one SIP provider. Which raises an interesting idea for improved competition. Make it possible for the user to choose their SIP provider. Force the phone companies to allow the use of that priority to any SIP RTP stream and otherwise make those companies just sell data service.

That would make a project like the one in the linked article come down to getting a magic module that provided an internet connection...

Post reply on HN