Nokia 3650 Might Be HMD Global's Next Revival

One of the side effects of Nokia flooding the market with a dizzying array of phones back in the days is that it had the opportunity to play around with different designs. Some of these, like the Nokia 3310, became popular for their reliability while others, like the Nokia 8110 "banana phone", became iconic for their design. And then there are some Nokia phones that some couldn't make heads or tails of and one of those might become one of HMD Global's next attempts to modernize.

Launched in 2003, the Nokia 3650 was one of the company's phones that were both popular and notorious at the same time. It used an unconventional circular layout in place of the traditional tabular layout of T9 keys. It was definitely a head-turner but not everyone liked the changes it made.

Unlike with touch QWERTY keyboards on all-screen phones these days, T9 keypads were more dependent on muscle memory to type out sentences in record time. Moving the keys around, literally, meant users had to relearn new patterns for typing. Not everyone was successful but those that were seemed to be drawing magic circles.

It would definitely be curious if HMD Global chose this to be its next revival project. Even if it does, however, it's also not certain if it will keep the Nokia 3650's iconic yet controversial feature anyway. So far, HMD Global's Nokia feature phones have leaned more towards practical functionality and nostalgia.

There are, of course, a whole host of other Nokia phones that HMD Global could choose to bring to the present. Some of them, particularly those with touch screens or gaming controls, may have even been ahead of their times. Suffice it to say, it will definitely be interesting to see HMD stir things up in the mobile market with some of Nokia's one-hit wonders, including the polarizing ones.