Could Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy flagships learn a thing or two from "dumb" Nokia phones?

The smartphone is smarter than me, just not by much and certainly not all the time. The smartphone allows me to call, text, take photos that are with a 50 million pixels resolution and to record mind-blowing video. The phone can guide me through a foreign city, it can translate stuff for me, it can even (try to) organize and enhance my day-to-day life with a bunch of sensors, alarms, suggestions, AI and whatnot.

However, modern smartphones – like the almighty iPhone or Samsung's Galaxy – owe it all to their predecessors. Like the "dumb" Nokia phones that are about to disappear from the market. Can smartphones learn a thing or two about being a cool device from their "dumb" ancestors? Can smartphones get much smarter by paying homage and drawing inspiration from their predecessors?

It's not a coincidence that "dumb" phones – a.k.a. feature phones – are on my mind now. Recently, there was this news that Nokia and HMD (the company which bought the license to the Nokia brand in 2016) will probably not renew their partnership. This means that 2025 may turn out to be the last year that new Nokia-branded phones hit stores. As I reported the other day, Nokia will probably release five new feature phones, which should be updated 2025 versions of well-known devices.

It's going to be a strange world come 2026 – a world where no Nokia phones are available, besides those resold by scalpers and collectors.

The 2025 version of the Nokia 5710XA, for example, might see an update in the form of a new port – instead of the dreaded Micro USB, it could get USB-C.

Have you ever seen the Nokia 5710XA (XpressAudio)? No? Well, oblige me. It's a phone that has a pair of earbuds hidden away in its rear panel… and the in-body case even recharges the headphones:



Fancy stuff. Not posh in the way the iPhone 17 Air or the Galaxy S25 Edge are going to be once they materialize (these two super thin phones are expected later in 2025), but in the sense of a unique, bold gadget.

Many Nokia phones from decades past were not just unique and bold – some ventured far beyond into truly wild territory, featuring some of the most bizarre and unconventional designs ever seen in mobile tech.

Let's take a trip down memory lane and check out some Nokia beasts – these are all models from the pre-HMD era. The "original" Nokia. And, while we're at it, let's comment if these old-timers can inspire today's ordinary (and bit boring, to say it frank) smartphones in any way imaginable.

Nokia 6800: the QWERTY experience

That's a normal phone at first sight and when not unfolded. Oh, but it's not a foldable we're talking about here. It's just the Nokia 6800 that had a QWERTY keyboard hidden up its sleeve. This feature made it possible to send emails – there was no WhatsApp back then – in a breeze. It kind of looks like a Transformer mid-transformation.

If a modern flip-style foldable (a.k.a. a clamshell) gets inspired by this one, we'd end up with something approximating a baguette for a screen: super tall and extremely narrow. Now that I come to think of it, this could be useful for doubling as a smart car's dashboard screen. I should patent this.

Nokia 7600: the letters W, T and F come up to mind

That's radical, and it should be in the Museum of Modern Arts. The Nokia 7600 looks like a phone evolution gone wrong and aborted mid-way. I don't say that with disrespect, it's just nothing like a "traditional" cell phone. It has a screen in the middle of its squarish, yet ellipse chassis, the buttons are to the left and to the right of the display. There's an enormous home button and overall, the design throws any symmetry out the window.

Looked from away – like from 20 miles away, this one looks like a modern-day flip phone. It's sort of square, it has a tiny screen in the middle… and that's about it. I'm glad that we've moved beyond the Nokia 7600 design.

Nokia 7280: where is the phone?

That's the "lipstick" Nokia 7280 phone. No traditional keyboard, just several buttons that are camouflaged in the body, a minuscule display and a rotating dial to interact with (like the iPod used to have). That phone is part-futuristic, part-insane, but it reminds me of today's foldables. With the exception that it doesn't unfold into a bigger form factor.

Maybe future foldables could take notes from this one and offer another layer of bending to resemble the lipstick chassis of the 7280. For this to happen, we need some truly non-crease display panels that are foldable to the point of getting liquid.

Nokia 3650: the designer has left the building, the Earth, and the Solar System

We just can't compile such a list without the Nokia 3650, which can cause epilepsy if stared at for too long. Maybe that's its defense mechanism.

The 1–9 buttons on this one are laid in a circular pattern (like on the ancient analog phone at home, if you're old enough to remember) at the bottom of the phone. There are lots of empty spaces and a whole galaxy of different-sized keys to complicate your brain even further.

It looks truly shocking to the unprepared eye, but I think that if someone who hates operating with touch screens can benefit from a smartphone that's inspired by the Nokia 3650 design-wise. Just imagine it: a physical keyboard at the bottom (perhaps not with that particular layout, but still) and a medium-to-large screen above it to see things clearly.

Nokia N93: lots of potential