Nokia’s 8110, aka the ‘Matrix Phone,’ Returns in May

Last year, Nokia revived the classic Nokia 3310, its iconic “candybar” phone renowned for being essentially indestructible to beings without access to vibranium, adamantium, or an Infinity Gauntlet. This year, the company is plumbing the depths bringing another nostalgia-fueled design back to market, with the re-launch of the Nokia 8110.

The Nokia 8110’s claim to fame is its brief-but-pivotal role in The Matrix. Early in the 1999 film, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) calls Neo (Keanu Reeves) to warn him that agents of the Matrix are closing in on his position. Over the next few minutes, Morpheus guides Neo through his office and out on to the side of the skyscraper, before Neo is ultimately caught. You can see a video of the scene below:

One thing to note is that the Nokia 8110 didn’t actually have a spring-loaded snap slider as depicted in The Matrix, and this new phone won’t, either. That’s a little odd, given that Nokia actually did release a spring-snap device to deliver The Matrix‘s on-screen capabilities in the form of the Nokia 7110. Apparently actually replicating the hardware people saw on-screen retroactively was a bit too expensive to be practical.

Last year’s announcement of the Nokia 3110 drove a lot of traffic, but the final device was underwhelming — a bottom-end feature phone gussied up in a fancy housing, but ultimately showcasing underwhelming features even compared with others of its type. This time around, Nokia has upgraded some of the internals over the 3310, though the specs still aren’t going to impress anyone used to smartphones. The Nokia 3310 used an ARM7EJ-S CPU, a chip originally introduced in 2001. The Nokia 8110 is based on the Qualcomm 205, which Qualcomm states uses two Cortex-A53 CPUs at 1.1GHz. That’s still anemic, mind you, but it’s much less anemic than a single-core CPU with an ISA that was new at the outset of George W. Bush’s first term.

Other specs include 4GB of storage, a 2MP rear camera, 320×240 QVGA display, LTE, 802.11n, Bluetooth support, FM radio, headphone jack, and a 1500mAh battery. It isn’t clear if Nokia will bring either phone to the US and the company hasn’t announced anything about price. Last year, the 3110 took fire for being substantially more expensive than other devices in its performance class. It remains to be seen if the 8110 dodges this bullet or gets smacked by it as well.