Nokia 7710 Vintage Mobile Phone

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The Nokia 7710 is a very early manifestation of a smartphone which was launched as early as 2004. It possessed a number of smartphone features including a touch screen with a 2:1 aspect ratio display.

This device was based around another Nokia product, the 7700 which was never actually launched and in many respects, this vintage mobile phone represented a milestone in the development of mobile phones as a whole.

Images courtesy of Mobile Phone Museum
Used with permission

The Nokia 7710 vintage mobile phone was launched in the era when 2G reigned and 3G was just starting to be used. People were not used to all the capabilities that we have come to expect as even the basic functionality of a phone today.

As a result this phone was well ahead of its time, trailblazing the way for future smartphones. Not surprisingly that some found that it was a little difficult to use as the techniques had not been honed for their ease of operation like they have today.

The Nokia 7710 had nt keypad and only used the touchscreen for selection options, typing and the like. For this a special pen was provided.

In many ways the 7710 was ahead of its time, as most phones from this era had a number pad which doubled up for text messaging.

This phone was a true smartphone, although it appears that it was not the easiest to use. This is hardly surprising as it was one of the earliest smartphones on the market

In terms of its features the 7710 provided many features that we have come to expect from modern phones.

Today, cameras tend to be a major differentiator, and the camera on this vintage phone provided multiple-format video recording and it even supported QCIF resolution at 17 frame/s in MPEG4, H.263 and Real Video 8 formats.

Picture viewing was able to suport a variety of formats including JPEG, GIF, WBMP, BMP, MBM and PNG.

Additionally a music player was provided that supported MP3, AAC, RealAudio 7 and 8, WAV, MIDI and AMR formats.

Although not one of the most popular phones of the time like the Nokia 3310 or the very many other phones from this stable, it nevertheless was a frontrunner, paving the way for developments by many other manufacturers.

The 7710 was one of the first smartphones to enter the market, and it could be argued that it was ahead of its time in many respects and with the fact that the techniques and some of the technologies used had not been properly honed, it was not as successful as it might have been had it launched some years later.

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