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Anyone who owned a phone in the early 2000s likely knows about the legendary durability of the Nokia 3310, which was easily one of the best Nokia phones of all time. Nokia’s early phones were tanks, surviving drops and falls that would obliterate today’s smartphones. The secret to the nearly magical resilience of these old phones boils down to what they were made of. Nokia wasn’t super focused on creating some groundbreaking premium aesthetic; instead, it used thick plastic polymers for its classic phones. These materials had just enough flexibility to absorb shock, which let the outer shell bounce when dropped, instead of cracking.
Contrast this thoughtfully resilient design with that of today’s smartphones. These gadgets are a comparatively wild combination of big glass panels bound by metal frames that are stiff. And even though aerospace-grade aluminum and tempered glass look beautiful, they don’t exactly have any give. So if your new smartphone slips and ends up hitting pavement, that inflexible metal frame will transfer much of the kinetic energy right into the brittle screen. Sad.
When thinking about Nokia’s iconic “indestructible” phones, also think about simple surface area. The company’s classic handsets sported tiny, deeply recessed monochrome displays shielded by thick plastic lenses. That left hardly any fragile surface exposed to the elements. Meanwhile, today’s phones rock giant edge-to-edge touchscreens. And if you aren’t using a phone case, one drop all but guarantees that glass is going to crack.
Why flying apart was actually a feature
Beyond their small screens and durable plastic shells, the thing that made Nokia’s classic phones all but impossible to destroy was their modular build. If one dropped on a hard floor, it simply broke apart into three pieces: the main body, the snap-on cover, and the battery. While that probably seems a bit dramatic, it’s by design; exploding apart like that dispersed the kinetic energy that would’ve otherwise caused damage. All you had to do at that point was grab the pieces, snap them back together, turn your phone back on, and move on with your day. It’s enough to make you wonder if Nokia is still making phones today.
Our phones today, however, have completely abandoned this approach for ultra-thin designs with huge screens intended to maximize the content they display. And to get their razor-thin profiles and high water resistance, today’s phones are fused together with strong adhesives — there is absolutely no room for parts to shift or flex or detach if they accidentally drop.
But if they do drop, all of that force needs to go somewhere. Energy often takes the path of least resistance, which for these phones can mean a shattered display since they can’t break apart to disperse that energy like the old Nokias could. Phone makers nowadays have traded in physical durability for digital practicality; while the devices are orders of magnitude more capable than classic phones, they lack the simpler and more durable design that made older handsets like the Nokia 3310 feel genuinely invincible.
