Nokia 8110

The Nokia 8110, with its distinctive slide cover closed.

Nokia 8110 was the first of Nokia's high-end, 8xxx series of phones released in 1996. 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 nearer to the mouth. 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".

The phone was featured in The Matrix film with an addition of a spring-loaded slider, to open itself for heightened dramatic effect. This spring-loading would be later incorporated into Nokia's second phone with a slider, the 7110.

Initially priced at a little bit less than EUR 1000, it was designed for the trendy business market and was one of the smallest and lightest phones on the market, but still had better battery life than its predecessor Nokia 2110.

The improved model 8110i was the first phone with the SSMS (Smart SMS) engine. 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 new phones.

Variants

• The Nokia 8146/8148 for the GSM-1800 band.

The model was offered by Orange UK as NK502 and NK503 with a SIM lock.

• The Nokia 3110 shared the same engine.

Codes for Nokia 8110

• *#06# - displays IMEI number
• *#8110# - displays version number