The Matrix was the sort of super cool movie that had the ability to make everything featured in it seem super cool by association, and while everybody’s totally still wearing those leather trench coats, one Matrix accessory that hasn’t aged quite so well is the late-’90s cell phone with the sliding cover thing that Keanu Reeves’ Neo used early in the film. It looked neat and it could make calls to Trinity, sure, but it couldn’t go on Twitter, play Flappy Bird, or any of the other terrible things we do on phones these days.
Neo’s phone was a Nokia 8110, nicknamed the “banana phone” because of its shape (even though all old phones look like bananas), and now the new Nokia has announced that it’s releasing a new version of the device for anyone who still dreams of sneaking out of their uptight office job while being pursued by evil government agents/computer programs.
This comes from The Daily Dot, and while catering to Matrix nerds is a nice bonus, the phone is actually being targeted more at general nostalgia-minded consumers and people who live outside of the smartphone-obsessed United States. The new 8110 will have a modern operating system, but it won’t be able to access the Google Play Store or use normal apps that other modern phones have. It’ll have some kind of basic Facebook functionality, but it’s really just a phone for people who only want to make calls and/or look like Neo.
The phone will be available in May for $97.