NOKIA

We Revisit Nokia 9210 Communicator, the phone that could send & receive FAX

Another Thursday, another throwback article. Today, we are going to take a look at Nokia's business phone from the 2000s, the Nokia 9210 Communicator. It was a hell of a phone and anyone who carried it back in its day showed that he meant serious business. And why wouldn't he? After all, the Communicator was one of the few mobile phones that could send and receive a fax. In an era where the internet wasn't widespread, this was a really big deal. Talking about big, the phone was also pretty large. In fact, it was large enough to replace a brick. But it did have its share of powerful features to justify its bulky form factor.
The Nokia 9210 Communicator is from the age when even mobile phone boxes were huge. And I was just pleasantly reminded (check the video at the end) that the phone came with a number of huge booklets that were supposed to be read before using it. Of course, nobody would have bothered to go through them, after all, it would probably have taken a few hours to read them all.
Moving on to the phone itself, I wasn't kidding when I said it resembled a brick. The phone measured 27mm in thickness and weighed 244 grams. It was like Nokia slapped on top of a mini laptop. I mean it looked the part. The Nokia 9210 Communicator looked like a cordless phone upfront, but when you opened it, the phone resembled a mini laptop. You got a full set of QWERTY keys and even extra functional buttons on top, making for a hell of a business phone. It was also the first Nokia phone to feature a color display. It was Nokia’s first Symbian OS phone too!

I actually decided to cover the Communicator today in the Throwback series because it came with two displays. I was reminded of this model when I was covering the launch of the Nubia Z20 which also had two displays and was rich in features.
The Nokia 9210 Communicator featured a small 80 x 48 pixel screen upfront with the secondary color display inside being the real gem. Measuring 4.5-inches with a 640 x 200 pixel resolution, it was one of the best displays in the mobile phone market back in its time. Not to mention, the phone also came with a card slot to expand its minuscule 16MB memory. But it had a decent 1400mAh battery, which was pretty large for its time.

You could access the calendar, internet, and other typical PDA features through the bigger screen and keyboard inside. It even had an infrared port and a video player.
Nokia's communicator clearly meant serious business and it had some serious features to back its reputation too. It's no surprise that Nokia managed to overtake competitors such as Palm as well as Compaq in 2001, thanks to the Nokia 9210 Communicator.
Any former Nokia Communicator users here?
In the meantime, check out this amazing video down below! It's a trip down the memory lane.

J. Joseph