I made an attempt with a phone that had a 2MP camera. The following five items were the worst of it.
In 2005, Nokia released the N90, one of the first smartphones with a 2-megapixel camera. Fast forward almost 20 years to 2024, and the only 2MP cameras we see are relegated to filling space on the back of low-cost devices, where they fulfill dubious duties like adding depth information to shots taken by the main camera. However, there is an exception: the reissued Nokia 3210, which sports a 2MP main camera on the back. Is it a nostalgic overload, the digital camera equivalent of shooting with film? I decided to find out, and quickly discovered that it’s not. Here are five things about it I’m thankful we don’t have to deal with today.
The image quality of the Nokia 3210’s 2MP camera is as expected, not very good. The low megapixel count makes this obvious, but it’s not just the megapixels that make using a modern smartphone camera so much better than 20 years ago. Comparing photos taken with the Nokia 3210’s 2MP camera to those taken with an iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 48MP main camera reveals a stark difference. The photos from the Nokia 3210 lack the clarity, color accuracy, and detail that modern cameras provide. There’s no HDR, optical image stabilization, or even autofocus. It’s as barebones as cameras get. Despite this, the photo of the church taken with the Nokia 3210 isn’t terrible, but it’s a reminder of how far camera technology has come and how much we take modern smartphone cameras for granted. These devices have easily and comprehensively documented my life and travels for years, providing a creative outlet that fits neatly in my pocket. This wasn’t possible when 2MP cameras were just becoming available.
Storage space was another significant issue with the Nokia 3210. After taking around 30 photos, I encountered an on-screen message informing me that the device’s memory was full. Despite each photo taking up less than 500KB, I had maxed out the camera’s allocation of the phone’s 128MB of space. The choice was simple: transfer the photos to a computer, insert a microSD card to store more, or delete photos. Today, the humble microSD card has been largely replaced by online storage services like Google Photos and Apple’s iCloud. With devices offering up to 1TB of internal memory, the concept of running low on storage has become a thing of the past. I can instantly look back at photos taken 10 years ago directly on my phone. In contrast, viewing memorable images on the Nokia 3210 would require finding the right microSD card and inserting it. The tiny phone supports cards up to 32GB, so maintaining a physical catalog of cards would likely be extensive.
Another inconvenience is the portrait orientation requirement. The Nokia 3210’s camera lacks auto-rotation, so it expects you to take photos with the phone held upright. I took all my photos in landscape orientation, as I’m conditioned to do, yet the photos were saved in portrait orientation. Viewing them on my computer monitor revealed that each needed to be manually rotated. While this isn’t the end of the world, it’s another aspect of modern smartphone photography we take for granted.
The Nokia 3210 also lacks a selfie camera. Features like taking selfies, joining video calls, or using facial recognition all require a front-facing camera. Just like the original, the reissued Nokia 3210 only has a camera on the back. Interestingly, it does have a mode for taking selfies or group photos, activated using an icon of a person’s head and shoulders. Pressing the button starts a 10-second countdown, assuming the phone has been attached to a tripod or propped up against something. However, you still can’t see the screen, so it’s down to luck if you and anyone else are in the frame. Video calls or face unlock? Forget them both.
Video recording is another area where the Nokia 3210 falls short. While modern phones can shoot video in resolutions up to 8K, the Nokia 3210’s 2MP camera records video in a format you’ve probably forgotten about — 3GP. The resolution is just 320 x 240 pixels, lower than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5’s cover screen resolution. The standard typically records at 15 frames per second, making it choppier than if I’d filmed at sea. The difference in video quality between a modern phone and a 2MP camera from 20 years ago is dramatic, highlighting how far technology has progressed.
It has been eye-opening to use the 2MP camera on the Nokia 3210 in 2024. At first, I was hoping to see anything nostalgic in the pictures. Even though I liked one of my pictures, it wasn’t at all nostalgic. The filters, which included a black-and-white option, improved nothing about the images; on the contrary. It left me a little let down. It serves as a reminder that even though I’m writing about phones’ cameras from 20 years ago, I’m actually using a brand-new phone. Playing around with a 2MP camera has helped me appreciate the amazing cameras that we have available today, such as the Xiaomi 14 Ultra with its Photographer Kit and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Two decades prior, I would have had to own an actual camera to take good photos. It’s been a good few years since anyone needed to say that, and I’m grateful for the advancements in smartphone camera technology
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