Tools of the trade for Operators who work nowhere near Starbucks
So when 3rd world rebels, bearded High-Speed low drag types, spies and Mercenaries need to make a call what phone do they pick-up? When I get the call to hop on a plane to some 3rd world war zone for a ridiculous amount of money what type of phone do I throw in my bag?
Sony Ericsson? No way, it’ll break in a week. Motorola? It won’t last 3 days before it breaks into two pieces. iPhone? Fuck no [I would rather use two tin cans and a string than anything “I” in the 3rd world.
So what is my and just about every other operator’s choice for a cell phone if we will be working in some of the most hostile and hardest use environments in the world?
Nokia – any model
Yep, just about everyone I tell this too is surprised when I say “I would rather use a pay phone than use any cell phone but Nokia in a War Zone”. But walk around a base in Iraq or around a city in Africa and you will see what I am talking about. Nokia is one of the most prevalent phones in the third world, and for good reason.
Even the cheapest model is bullet proof, and oddly the cheaper the model you buy the tougher it is. One of the reasons why Nokia phones are so tough is Nokia’s main market is Asia, Southeast Asia in particular. Unlike in the US or Europe where people go from their homes to their car to their office - in Asia people jump onto the back of a kerosene and diesel fuming Tuck-Tuck, then to a bus or subway stuffed with 80 people then a 20 minute walk in a pothole covered street.
And Nokia knows if their phones can’t take that then simply people won’t buy their phones. In parts of Asia buying a cell phone is a big investment, so if word got around that Nokia made shit phones that fell apart then no one would buy one. So market pressures have forced them into making even the cheapest model tough as hell.
The Nokia 5110, Circa 1999 and still in use by Operators around the world today - The Toughest Cell Phone Ever Made
And people who work in the 3rd world in jobs that are extremely hard on electronics where communication can be a matter of life or death have learned that no other phone can take abuse and keep calling like a Nokia.
I remember one time I was jumping out of a Blackhawk in Balad, Iraq when my Nokia 9500 communicator [one of the first color screen qwerty keyboard cell phones] fell out of my pocket and smashed into 9 pieces on the ground. After chasing the pieces around the flight deck I snapped it back together right there, turned it on and called for my contact to pick me up.
And that is just one of a hundred stories I have heard and experienced about a Nokia phone taking mad damage and still working. I know guys who used them for years when the screen was cracked, the case held together with duct tape and the antenna cap missing with zero operational issues.
Another good operational aspect of using Nokia phones in the 3rd world is the ease of getting extra batteries, chargers and accessories. I swear every hajji shop in the Middle East has 20 types of Nokia chargers and plastic zippered carry cases. Seriously, you can buy a Nokia and 84 different accessories every two blocks in the 3rd world. That alone is a major reason why choosing a Nokia phone for overseas work is a no-brainer [there is no Golden Connex in the suck].
Leonardo Dicaprio sporting a Nokia in Jordan in the spy flick body of lies – Even Hollywood knows real world operators in the 3rd world use the Nokia
The next time you are watching a newscast during a coup or civil war pay attention, you will see dudes in the background chatting on Nokia phones or with one strapped to the shoulder strap of their LBE [an oddly popular way of carrying a Nokia in Latin America]. Hell, even Hollywood has caught on to the “guys who carry guns use Nokia’s, you will see Leonardo DiCaprio using one of the tougher older models in Body of Lies and tons of other movies. Hell, even James Bond uses a Nokia.
So whenever I pack my bags for a gig in some far off 3rd world hell-hole the first things that come out of storage and into my bag are my Nokia phones and a good pair of boots.
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~James G
Founder – Editor in Chief
James G is a Veteran Civilian Contractor who has worked in the Middle East and Southeast Asia for way too long; he has traveled to over 50 countries chasing fortune and glory. He spends his off time in Indonesia and Virginia getting drunk, shooting guns, writing poorly written articles and spending way too much on the latest models of Nokia’s. James G. on FACEBOOK
I can always tell if someone is a real-deal operator by the phone they use
Old Beat-Up Nokia = Just came back from Iraq/Afghanistan with a stopover in Bangkok
With the exception of the Blackberry, I have seen allot of guys using those lately
~James G
James G.(Quote This Comment)
According to several reviews that I read last night, the Nokia 3310 is damn near indestructible. And, RIM ( BlackBerry’s parent company ) just took another hit this last week. Since iPhones are running at or above the $500 mark ( it’s a phone, for God’s sake) , I’m looking at Samsung, LG, or HTC. No, I’m not going to any of the Stans for leave time, or working on the Mideast. I just need a durable phone that won’t cost me two paychecks and won’t fall apart if I look at it crossways.
Jeff(Quote This Comment)
Man I had an iPhone 3Gs for two years that I dropped all the day, sometimes even “projectile dropped”. Screen was shattered eventually and the damn thing was still running. Still is, in fact, just using a different phone.
DillonT(Quote This Comment)
The Nokia 5110 was my first mobile ever. I think I bought it in 1996 or ’97. Belt carry was obligatory
Jens(Quote This Comment)
Them damn Blackberries have such small keys that I always hit two or three at a time. Kind of a pain in the ass to have to find a pencil or take out t round of ammo to use the keyboard. I think I’m just going to sharpen one of my fingers!
Tom McClelland(Quote This Comment)
I have a Nokia that is so used you need to remember the number placement, the keys are pearl white! Bullet proof ,Sandstorms ,soaking rain , numerous drops It has never failed ! I do carry a Global Star Sat phone just in case!
swordpoint9(Quote This Comment)
The toughest phones I have ever used have been Nokia. In my last trip to the Philippines, my iPhone4 did a great job, got 3g reception everywhere. (cities – villages) For me it is nearly as strong as my nokia’s were. Then again, I still have 3 of those nokia’s and take one with me on every trip there too… (just in case)
Phillip W. Martin(Quote This Comment)
We use to call old school nokia phones “Bricks”. As a teenager I remember hearing stories of spoilt kids trying to get rid of their Nokia phones (so daddy could buy them a new cool Sony Ericsson) by tossing them around or dropping them on purpose… all this to no avail since the phone just wouldn’t break. I remember a friend of mine one punched me with his 2 year old 5110 and it sure was quite painful… so it wasn’t only a communication tool but a personal defense weapon as well, lol. My grand father carried a 5110 for almost 8 years until just recently until he bought a newer gen Nokia phone.
IMO, I just don’t like Nokia phones for use within the calmed city life, but there’s no point arguing their durability.
Juan M(Quote This Comment)
Glad you finally put this article up! I remember when we were talking about phones and throwing up an article about Nokia phones haha.
I second the fact that in Asian 3rd World countries… practically EVERYONE has a Nokia phone. In the Philippines, even though they are dead ass broke, living in the “squater” areas, no food to eat…. they all ahve your basic Nokia phone. In the country areas, on all the farms/plantations… everyone harvesting sugar cane has a Nokia phone. From the top execs to the person living in a bamboo hut, they all carry Nokias.
Though you may not here about them much in the US since we have iPhone, Android and Blackberry… if you check their sales, Nokia has made the most profit year after year over iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Hey, they have to be doing something right if they’re dominating the cellphones sales market.
Jay Greyman(Quote This Comment)
have you noticed any iphones on the field?
tim(Quote This Comment)
Yup, I used an old iPhone 3G the last time I was in Iraq. Bought it from another contractor who had upgraded to a new phone. Bought a Zain sim card from the Haji shop and it worked perfectly. It came with a two piece cover. I would through it in my admin pouch and use in areas where our portable radios didn’t work.
Gotta say that the flat desert is great for cell reception/range!
Buckaroomedic(Quote This Comment)
Ah come on James, you don’t have your Iphone attached to your M4. All the cool kids are doing it. You are right however, most Nokias are built like tanks. My go to ones when I am abroad are an N95 or a 9500, I was in the UK one time and as smarter phones were starting to sell they were selling them for about 10 quid so I bought about 20. And I always toss at least one in my bag before going abroad.
Though if I were you I would also stock up on them. I hear they are partnering with Microsoft and at least to me that sounds kind of like they may take a turn for the cheap.
Eugene(Quote This Comment)
Damned, I had the 5110 too back when I lived in Sweden, which is a 1st World Country LOL. I think.
Tacticalgearhead(Quote This Comment)
Nokia cellphones and Acer laptops have two things in common
- Theyre though and cheap!
both of them are lying on my table right now
Manu(Quote This Comment)
And as a BTW – DiCaprio had to have a professional cell phone instructor on site to give him tech guidance in operating the Nokia; he and Matt Damon both had trouble figuring out that they couldn’t play iTunes and stream camel-porn on the basic models.
Slobyskya Rotchikokov(Quote This Comment)
James,
I sent this link to a couple of execs at Nokia – think they’ll appreciate your real-world assessment. Problem is the basic “tough-as-nails” models aren’t driving growth and margins – hence the MS tie up. We’ll see if it pays off…
Ravination(Quote This Comment)
Dead on article James. 3 old school Nokias used for 10 years (and still in use) in Honduras under extreme conditions and I refuse to trade them in for anything else. Thai phone is a Nokia as well. They are built to last and they are cheap enough for me not to cry about if they grow legs and walk away.
DrDave(Quote This Comment)
I have 2 cells that I take with me to Southwest Asia. One is an AsiaCell Motorola about the size of my sausage thumb. The other is a Roshan Nokia, with no letters on the keys, a screen with no backlight (did it myself) and assembled from about 8 different phones, which creates a nice color scheme of “field expedient”… Love my little field phones. Too bad I can’t get them to work here…..
SOLDIERSCOTT(Quote This Comment)
Early/Cheap models of Nokia cellphones = tough, simple, and cheap!
Later/Expensive models of Nokia cellphones = Utter shit in my experience.
I remember back in the school days throwing my Nokia 3210 at brick walls and concrete floors just for fun and to try and get the damn thing to break so I could go out and buy a new one. Nope – that thing just kept on keepin’ on.
I have a spare Nokia cellphone in my BOB because I don’t trust my late model overpried piece of shit Nokia C6.
Reuben(Quote This Comment)
For CONUS use, the Sanyo, Tahoe is about as tough and almost as ugly as the Nokia
C.H.A.O.S.conflictresolution(Quote This Comment)
I love Nokia Communicator Series my first was 9210 and I had every another model.
9510i was propably the first cell phone with QUERTY and foto.
In the last 10 years I`ve had all the time Nokias but one time I had Samsung – shit.
Nokia E71i is my favorite cell!
harAs(Quote This Comment)
Sounds like you were describing my phone there. the old dust, splash and shockproof Nokia. When people take the piss out of mine I kick it in the air and catch it with my hand whilst asking them if they mind if I do it with their phone next
[img]http://www.deathvalleymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/nokis 2222222.jpg[/img]
Dutch(Quote This Comment)
Before shooting off – “What is next: praise of the Volkswagen Käfer (Beetle) due to no electronics in the car?” – here is my admission: Yes, I have a second SIM (same phone#) in a Nokia E51 phone as well. (It has more to do with my professional paranoia of losing my iPhone or having it confiscated at some shitty 3rd world airport.)
Still, I do not want to miss my iPhone/iPad on the go and the protection available makes it a very solid phone as well. Another Apple advantage for “paranoid professionals:” cloud-syncing of contacts and remote-delete/lock.
Lorenz Szabo(Quote This Comment)
Another superb no-bullshit article by DVM.
James, you make me want to grow tits on my back for you.
coldharvest(Quote This Comment)
cold, your poetic prose brings a tear to my eye. To say you have a way with words would be an understatement to a spectacular degree my friend.
DrDave(Quote This Comment)
Stay away from touch screen phones. They are great for games but not very robust. Besides you can get chargers for a Nokia on every single intersection.
BoB(Quote This Comment)
http://www.comm-co.com/jm/images/ATEX/sonim_xp3_2.jpg
That’s my weapon of choice
M4gnetic(Quote This Comment)
the 5110 was my second phone, my first one was a crappy motorola brick-shit-phone… speaking of motorola, anybody has any experiences with the “Defy”? also, the nokia 3720 seems pretty rugged, thinking of getting one.
seb(Quote This Comment)
funny read as i recall nokia getting their share of bad press regarding people that had to have their nokia phone repaired time and time again back when the GSM network was just starting to spread in Europe.
I guess another thing that may have made their phones rugged over the years is that the Finnish weather is anything but electronics friendly. Freezing temperatures and snow for something like 2/3 of the year can take its toll. Maybe why they kept using resistive touch screens while the rest of the wold was going gaga over capacitive, easier to operate while wearing thick winter gloves.
turn.self.off(Quote This Comment)
On the subject of tough gear, the Nikon film SLRs (F-series) were known for taken mad abuse and still clunking on, that reputation about the company has gone away with digital age though, and they’re a helluva lot cheaper then then the leica cameras of the same era, yeah, them nokias just keep tanking
Ducky(Quote This Comment)
ya good old times when the mobile phones made of wood.
chris(Quote This Comment)
I tried to find fault with this thread and could not, it is a phone designed for 3rd World Shitholes.
skukuza(Quote This Comment)
And further to this, any touch screen phone is for fucking gay-boys.
skukuza(Quote This Comment)
Got a Nokia 1616-2 that i am trying DESPERATELY to unlock. Any reliable sources out there that can help me?
Ruppert Baird(Quote This Comment)
did you try http://unlock.nokiafree.org/ ?
seb(Quote This Comment)
Agree on using old school Nokia for backup, but if one does need a smartphone after all, what would you guys recommend? I’ve had no trouble using a blackberry in dark parts of Africa and I am biased towards proper keys rather than touchscreen. Problem is bberrys are a bit like iphones in that they seem overpriced compared to android handsets. Plus their cameras are crap and I like having a good camera in my phone as some people in the third world tend to get a bit twitch about cameras. (Even though they must know all phones have cameras these days.)
taclounge(Quote This Comment)
for a chairborne ranger with the Walter Mitty Division qualified in micro-soft word such as myself that was as eye opening as the weapon reviews. Had no idea cell phones were so prevalent in the 3rd World. Thanks for the lesson. Would love to see a handgun review from you, no doubt it would be entertaining!
cj(Quote This Comment)
I still remember the my friend having the model after the 5110. It was when they started streamlining all there phones. Around the same time his 7-8-9 keys stopped working we decided we would beat it up as hard as we could to see how long it could go before it would stop answering incoming calls.
We started by skipping it along his street like skipping rocks. After doing that for about an hour with no issues of answering calls, we deciding to start throwing it as high and as far as we could.
Still worked fine after an hour, answer calls fine despite the screen was flickering on and off and the case was beginning to fail.
We ended up setting it on fire, dunking it in water, throwing it some more, and then we hit it with a hammer repeatedly before it finally croaked. That thing was a beast.
Coincidentally my friend in his quest to destroy his phone to get a newer cooler one, decided it was probably best just to get another nokia.
Mike Charlie(Quote This Comment)
* My Nokia E71 survived a year @ camp cupcake, and a couple other trips until my wife dropped it in the Laundry.
* I had some POS low end nokia fall out of my pocket and hit the tarmac at about 45 miles an hour (motorcycle) and skitter off into the weeds. Then something managed to crack the screen. Eventually it quit working.
Nokia was the first cellphone company that figured out how to made sturdy cellphones cheap enough for the third world and inner cities. Now other companies have figured it out. Microsoft won’t save Nokia, but it may give them some breathing room.
William O. B’Livion(Quote This Comment)
http://www.mobileshandsets.com/mobile-handsets/nokia/nokia-c100.htm
New favorite when traveling, 2 SIMs are great – never know when you might forget to pay the bill on one or something like that. It does last forever, flashlight isn’t a replacement for anything more then a photon.
Jean(Quote This Comment)
I fully agree with the Nokia survival rate in a 3rd world. Second to none.
I am based in 2 main cities in S.E.Asia, Singapore and Bangkok. iPhone can really be a good sidekick for all the email, news apps and social networking and stuffs, because of 3G. However, as I mentioned, I am based there so after a day outdoor, i most likely will return to my nest and recharge the power sucking iPhone.
When I am traveling into places like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and even Vietnam, iPhone or Cleverphones, in general, will not be practical.
Obviously because of the battery. Sometimes I am on the road all the time, up to 24 hours or more of traveling, where the hell am I going to charge my iPhone? Furthermore, its pretty useless when there is no 3G signal in the countrysides (including Thailand’s).
Communication must still be possible and I only trust my Nokia 1660.
Simple to use, standby period (if no necessary calls at all), will be up to 4 days. Usually I will make sure my battery life is good and I also bring along a spare, so that might even give me up to 8 days conservatively. The whole idea is that I am contactable by my family and friends and also you might never know when you need to make that emergency call out there in the long wilderness highway.
Actually I also experience that certain areas in the north of Thailand/Myanmar borders, there is even NO signal at all. Come to think of it, someone recommended me a Satellite Phone that day with quite an affordable talk time rate, about US$1 per minute, I think its good to consider. US$1 per minute is even cheaper then GSM roaming in most countries.
That’s my thoughts. So I still give a thumb up for Nokia (Non 3G, non color screen).
Alex(Quote This Comment)
I’ll stick with my 1st gen Thuraya Hughes 7101, not the XT. It’s a like buck a minute, but it’s also not my primary. I use multiple phones, and will take what’s there. The 7101 is a beast and the GPS/SMS features are solid. I’ve had a garmin snagged by overzealous “baggage handlers” on more than one occasion, and the Thuraya’s been overlooked every time, even in sat phones a no go locales. Only drag is not being able to use the bad sig hang up…that and my fucking bill isn’t consistent. In this case performance over pay every time.
snapshot(Quote This Comment)
From back in the day where I came from, Asian gangsters were using Nokia phone as hand baton in the gang fight, and still making calls after beating left and right, from that makes the history of Nokia phones’ legacy of the indestructible phone of all time, beat down approved, lol
Chiu, Chin J.(Quote This Comment)
E-71 is the classic. lots of early smartphone features in a ruggged Nokia. Feels nice and solid, especially with an Otterbox rubber cover. Whenver i go anywhere muddy and remote, it gets a smim card transplant from that poncy blackberry i carry around in my 9-5. i zip it into a small aloksak if i’m on the water.
Jib Halyard(Quote This Comment)