You must have been reading in the news recently about a Nokia 3310 with 70% battery which was found after 20 years. Well, I am afraid to inform you but this news is totally fake.
There is no consumer grade battery in the world which can last for up to 20 years without recharging. Furthermore, the news website called the ‘Chesterbungle‘ actually publishes satirical content. The website publishes articles with ridiculous titles and stories that defy reality in every sense; it is expected of them since their forte is satire.
You can get the idea that their content is focused on the fun factor just by reading the following headlines – “Facebook likes Marginally Better Than Prayers, Confirms Pope” and “Your MUM Banned From ‘All You Can Eat’ Buffet.”
However, it didn’t stop several websites from taking the news of the ‘Nokia 3310 with 70% battery’ seriously and writing feature-length articles about it. The list of websites that published this hoax article as actual news includes some big media houses which prompt serious questions over their journalistic standards.
Nokia 3310 With 70% Battery Fooled Journalists
Several media websites, including NEWS18 India, India Times, Dainik Bhaskar and several more published the satirical article as actual real news without any investigation. The satirical article jokingly wrote that the Nokia 3310 had not just created a phone but instead created renewable energy.
However, this didn’t stop several well-known news websites from writing the exact same thing without understanding even a tiny bit about it. These websites, which were clearly motivated by clicks, frothed so much at the opportunity to publish something viral that they didn’t bother to check even once about any credible source. Which makes them akin to TikTok users who will do anything to go viral.
An obvious satirical statement in the Chesterbungle article which quoted Doctor Ivor Bignob on the Nokia 3310 was also taken as the truth. The statement read – the phone is so powerful that it can light up a whole city/town – and it was interpreted as nothing but the truth by these so-called ‘journalists.’
A city requires electricity with the order of several megawatts, and Nokia 3310 original model was powered by a mere 1,000 mAh battery. So the journalists who wrote the article aren’t just bad at basic reporting, they’re downright incumbent at maths and common sense as well.
Nokia 3310 With 70% Battery Is Fake News Here’s Why
Battery degradation is a real phenomenon. Any phone, even if its switched-off will lose electric charge over time. This is because even when switched off, the cellular chipset in the phone keeps working, and sometimes the phone also stays in low power mode so it can respond to power on request.
This was confirmed by Syed Z Hossain, a former MIT student and CTO of Aeris communications. Thus there is no way that the Nokia 3310 was found with 70% battery after 20 years in the closet.
Furthermore, over time the ability of the lithium-ion battery to hold the electric charge also degrades over time. The same was published in a scientific paper titled: ‘A review on lithium-ion battery ageing mechanisms and estimations for automotive applications.’
In the paper, the author clearly states that – “The effects of battery ageing limit its performance and occur throughout their whole life, whether the battery is used or not, which is a major drawback on real usage.”
Meaning over time, the ability of a battery to store charges will degrade no matter what. This ultimately proves that the battery of a Nokia 3310 after 20 years will probably be dead just like the journalistic standards of the above-mentioned news outlets.
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