What the Nokia 3310 teardown teaches about robust design

The following post is part of a teardown series written by Shivam Dehinwal, a product design engineer and member of the informal freelance collective, based in Southern California. When he’s not building all kinds of innovative products, Shivam unfolds the story behind the development of products through informed teardown analysis. All images are screenshots shown here are from the in-depth teardown videos by JerryRigEverything and iFixit. 

The iconic Nokia 3310 sold 126 million units worldwide. This device still holds its reputation of durability and has become a popular meme subject. Comparing the Nokia 3310 with smartphones isn’t a fair comparison, but I still wanted to see what made these phones so durable. I remember how these phones would split into parts when dropped from a significant height, and how putting them together was as easy as replacing batteries in a remote control. Here’s what I learned from checking out teardowns of the phone.

What made the Nokia 3310 extremely robust? The short answer is simplicity, materials, and design. 

Compared to the sleek, flushed screen and milled aluminum body of a smartphone, a Nokia 3310 has:

• A small screen that’s inset by about 1 mm
• A rubber keypad that acts as a bumper
• A strong plastic cover, plus a thick-walled plastic body shell inside
• Small and thick form factor (apply beam-bending formulas here)

Also take into consideration:

• The front cover snaps with the inner plastic shell, with no adhesives.
• Under the front cover and the keypad is a clear PC part that holds the speaker and screen modules.
• Under the PC part is a PET skin with clickable metal cans that contact the PCB.

There’s also a single PCB in the phone. While I’m not a PCB expert, here’s what I think makes the phone reliable:

• No delicate connectors
• No flexible printed circuits (FPCs) that could go out with a single nick
• Nothing that generates too much heat

Pictured below is the inner plastic shell and it’s a pretty strong part. I’m guessing the material is nylon. The connectors are bulky and placed in removable independent modules. Spot the vibration motor!

It’s surprising that none of those connectors are soldered on, and the whole phone — even the screen and speaker module — rely on spring contacts. Fascinating!

That’s a wrap on this teardown of a teardown. Please share with me your Nokia 3310 stories in the comments!

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