Rise of the retro phone: Trend for app-free bulky mobiles means some 1990s models are fetching up to £800

• Among the top-sellers is the old-school Nokia 8210 at €59.99 (£48 or $80)
• A vintage Nokia 8800 Arte Gold is selling online for €1,000 (£810 or $1,360) 
• Experts claim the high-price is because old mobile phones are now trendy
• They are also simple to use, have long-lasting batteries and are more sturdy

By Ellie Zolfagharifard

Published: 22:25 AEST, 26 May 2014 | Updated: 22:26 AEST, 26 May 2014

In a surprising trend, consumers are increasingly buying retro phones such as this Ericsson R290 Satellite which came out in 1999

Remember when snake was all you needed to be entertained?

Now, the retro mobile game could be making a comeback, along with the vintage handsets it was played on.

Consumers harking back to a simpler era are turning their backs on smartphones by embracing bulky, vintage mobiles, with retro features.

The demand for these old-school phones is so high that some models of old Nokias, Ericssons and Motorolas are now fetching up to €1,000 (£810 or $1,360) a piece.

While they may lack features, these retro phones are simple to use, have batteries that last the week and are practically indestructible compared to their smartphone equivalent.

 

‘Some people don't blink at the prices, we have models at more than €1,000 (£810 or $1,360),’ said Djassem Haddad, who started the site vintagemobile.fr in 2009.

‘The high prices are due to the difficulty in finding those models, which were limited editions in their time.’

For instance, a Nokia 8800 Arte Gold is currently listed on the site for €1,000 (£810 or $1,360), while a Nokia 8800 could be purchased for €250 (£200 or $337)

Mr Haddad had been hoping to explore what he believed to be a niche market, but since last year, sales have taken off.

Remember when snake was all you needed to be entertained? The retro mobile game could be making a comeback, along with the vintage handsets it was played on. Consumers harking back to a simpler-era are turning their backs on smartphones by embracing bulky, vintage mobiles, with retro features

Among the top-sellers is the Nokia 8210, with a tiny monochrome screen and plastic buttons, at €59.99 (£48 or $80). Finnish firm Nokia, the biggest mobile phone company before the advent of Apple's iPhone or Samsung's Galaxy, offloaded its handset division to Microsoft this year after failing to catch the smartphone wave

Over the past two to three years, his company has sold some 10,000 handsets, ‘with a real acceleration from the beginning of 2013’.

WHAT COULD YOUR OLD MOBILE BE WORTH? 

Among the top-sellers on vintagemobile.fr  is the Nokia 8210, with a tiny monochrome screen and plastic buttons, at €59.99 (£48 or $80).

A Nokia 8800 Arte Gold is currently listed on the site for €1,000 (£810 or $1,360), while a Nokia 8800 could be purchased for €250 (£200 or $337). 

A Motorola StarTac 130 - a model launched in 1998 - and repainted bright orange was recently offered for €180 (£145 or $245), while an Ericsson A2628 with gold coloured keys for at €80 (£65 or $110). 

Among the top-sellers on the website is the Nokia 8210, with a tiny monochrome screen and plastic buttons, at €59.99 (£48 or $80).

‘The ageing population is looking for simpler phones, while other consumers want a second cheap phone,’ he said.

Ironically, the trend is just starting as the telecommunications industry throws such handsets into the recycling bins, hailing smartphones as the way ahead.

Finnish firm Nokia, the biggest mobile phone company before the advent of Apple's iPhone or Samsung's Galaxy, offloaded its handset division to Microsoft this year after failing to catch the smartphone wave.

But it was probably also the supposedly irreversible switch towards smartphone that has given the old school phone an unexpected boost.

For Damien Douani, an expert on new technologies at FaDa agency, it is simply trendy now to be using the retro phone.

A Motorola StarTac 130 - a model launched in 1998 - and repainted bright orange was recently offered for €180 (£145 or $245). Ironically, the trend is just starting as the telecommunications industry throws such handsets into the recycling bins, hailing smartphones as the way ahead

There is ‘a great sensation of finding an object that we knew during another era - a little like paying for vintage sneakers that we couldn't afford when we were teenagers,’ Mr Douani told AFP.

There is also ‘a logic of counter-culture in reaction to the over-connectedness of today's society, with disconnection being the current trend.’

‘That includes the need to return to what is essential and a basic telephone that is used only for making phone calls and sending SMSes,’ he added.

It is also about ‘being different. Today, everyone has a smartphone that looks just like another, while ten years ago, brands were much more creative.’

French online shop Lekki, which sells a range of vintage, revamped mobile phones, claims simplicity is the way forward.

On the left is a photo from 14 years ago of a Nokia mobile phone which was able to access Internet. On the right is a photo of an Ericsson mobile telephone sporting the slogan of Japan's Sony Corporation, taken in 2001

‘Too many online social networks and an excess of email and applications, have made us slaves to technology in our everyday life,’ it said on its website.

A Motorola StarTac 130 - a model launched in 1998 - and repainted bright orange was recently offered for €180 (£145 or $245), while an Ericsson A2628 with gold coloured keys for at €80 (£65 or $110).

‘We have two types of profiles: the 25 to 35 year-olds attracted by the retro and offbeat side of a telephone that is a little different, and those who are nostalgic for the phone that they used when they were younger,’ said Maxime Chanson, who founded Lekki in 2010.

‘Some use it to complement their smartphone, but others are going for the vintage, tired of the technology race between the phone makers.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2639542/Rise-retro-phone-Trend-app-free-bulky-mobiles-means-1990s-models-fetching-800.html#ixzz32rnztSSw

When hitting 'Find My iPhone' takes you to a thief's doorstep

West Covina, California: After a boozy Saturday night, Sarah Maguire awoke the next morning to find that her iPhone was gone. Her roommate's phone was gone, too. Were they at the bar, she wondered, or in the cab? 
Using the Find My iPhone app on her computer, she found that someone had taken the phones to a home in West Covina, 50 kilometres east of her West Hollywood apartment.
So Maguire, a slight, 26-year-old yoga instructor, did what a growing number of phone theft victims have done: She went to confront the thieves - and, to her surprise, got the phones back.
"When I told my mom what I did, she thought I was crazy," Maguire said.

The emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice - an unintended result of the proliferation of GPS tracking apps - has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item.
"This is a new phenomenon - it's not simply running after the person to grab the phone," said George Gascon, the San Francisco district attorney and a former police chief. "It opens up the opportunity for people to take the law into their own hands, and they can get themselves into really deep water if they go to a location where they shouldn't go."
"Some have been successful," Gascon said. "Others have gotten hurt."
More than 3 million smartphones were stolen across the United States last year, according to a survey by Consumer Reports.
Victims are often desperate to recover their stolen phones, which, as home to their texts, photos and friends' phone numbers, can feel less like devices than like extensions of their hands.
And although pursuing a thief can occasionally end in triumph, it can also lead to violence, particularly because some people arm themselves - hammers are popular - while hunting for their stolen phones.
A New Jersey man ended up in custody himself after he used GPS technology to track his lost iPhone and attacked the wrong man, mistaking him for the thief.
Commander Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, called the trend "a big concern".
"It's just a phone - it's not worth losing your life over," he said. "Let police officers take care of it. We have backup, guns, radio, jackets - all that stuff civilians don't have."
Still, although police departments have devoted more resources to combating smartphone theft, most cannot chase every stolen device right away, especially if the phone was left idly on a bar rather than seized in an armed robbery.
Despite the obvious risks, the lost phone's location - blinking on a GPS app - is a siren song many find too alluring to ignore.
After Nadav Nirenberg lost his iPhone on New Year's Eve in 2012, he realised someone was sending messages from his OkCupid account. He lured the thief to his Brooklyn apartment building by posing as a woman and flirting with him on the dating service.
When the thief arrived with a bottle of wine, expecting to meet "Jennifer", Nirenberg went up behind him, hammer at his side. He slapped a $20 bill on the thief, to mollify him and compensate him for his time and wine, and demanded the phone. The thief handed it over and slunk away.
"I was trying to avoid conflict," Nirenberg said. But he added that, if robbed again, he would go to the police.
Police chiefs have advocated another solution that they say could end smartphone thefts altogether: a mandatory "kill switch" that would render stolen phones inoperable and therefore unattractive to thieves.
"This would all be moot if we had an industrywide kill switch," Gascon said.
After years of pressure, phone makers, including Apple, have begun offering this feature. But a bill that would require a kill switch on all smartphones sold in California has stalled in the state legislature amid opposition from the telecommunications industry.
When Maguire and her roommate called the Los Angeles police, she said, they were told they could go to West Covina themselves and call 911 if they felt threatened. 
Maguire debated for hours before deciding to go after her phone. The house where her phone had been taken was on a quiet residential street, with a well-tended yard and palm trees out front. Inside, she could see children running through the hall - a sign, she hoped, that she was dealing with opportunists, not career criminals.
She knocked on the door. It swung open, revealing a large man, about 30 years old. "I think you have my phone," Maguire said haltingly, as she later recounted the conversation. The man denied this. But she pressed him, insisting that GPS had led her to that address.
The man ducked back inside. The blinds in the living room, which had been open when she arrived, slowly closed.
Finally, he returned with one phone, then - after more negotiation - with the second. Unsure if the danger was over, Maguire sprinted to her car.
Still, when she was asked by text message if she would pursue a future pickpocket, she typed an unequivocal reply on her recovered phone: "Yes, def."
New York Times

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