"Banana phone" redirects here. For the children's album, see Bananaphone.For the newer phone of the same name, see Nokia 8110 4G.Not to be confused with Nokia 8810.
Nokia 8110
The Nokia 8110i, with its distinctive slide cover closed.
Nokia 8110 is a mobile phone released in 1996. It was announced on 9 September 1996, as the first of Nokia's high-end 8000 series of phones.[2] Its distinctive styling was the first example of a 'slider' form factor. A sliding cover protected the keypad when being carried in the pocket and extended downwards in use, bringing the microphone closer to the mouth.[3] The action of opening the cover also answered an incoming call. The prominent curvature of the case, particularly when open, earned it the nickname "banana phone". It was also the first Nokia phone with monochrome graphic LCD.
The phone was designed for the business market and was one of the smallest and lightest (152 grams) phones on the market, but still had better battery life than its predecessor Nokia 2110. The phone was also the first GSM cellphone to use an ARM processor.[1]
The improved 8110i model, announced in March 1997, was the first phone with the SSMS (Smart SMS) engine.[4] The handsets could be updated OTA (Over The Air) with an intelligent menu structure, which allowed simple information input, input which was sent through a simple structured text message to an MT receiver. This station could interpret information and a structured text message back to the handset. Ring tone receiving by SMS was also part of the smart messaging protocol, so 8110i was also the first mobile phone to support it. Nokia later stopped marketing Smart messaging and concentrated on the upcoming WAP standard, but has not dropped smart messaging support from later phones.
The 8110 is visually the same as the 8110i, apart from on the earlier model, the Nokia logo appears in white.
8110 and 8110i models were succeeded by Nokia 8810 in 1998, while the 8146 and 8148 models were succeeded by Nokia 7110 in 1999.
Cultural references
An altered version of this phone was famously featured in the science fiction action film The Matrix (1999), for which it was modified featuring a spring-loaded mechanism (this actually appeared on the Nokia 7110).[5][6]