Nokia's revived Matrix phone could've been so much cooler

HMD Global's Nokia 8110 4G -- a fresh take on the legendary phone best known for its appearance in The Matrix movie -- disappointed some fans because it didn't feature the spring-release mechanism on its front cover, as seen in the movie.

The criticism is somewhat misguided, though, since the original Nokia 8110 was a simple plastic slider that never had the spring-release mechanism. Only the movie version had the spring-release feature for added coolness.

However (and this will surely add to the confusion over this matter), the new Nokia 8110 4G almost had the spring-release mechanism; Nokia gave up on that design at the last minute.

This is according to TechRadar, which spoke with HMD Global (the owner of Nokia brand) chief product officer Juho Sarvikas. He claims that the company planned for the new 8110 to have the spring-release mechanism right from the get-go, but it made the phone a lot bigger.

"So we had both [designs] in parallel, and what we decided is the way you can operate the 8110 with a single hand - without the spring - and the benefit that brings on the dimensions and how much more beautiful the design was, we ended up going with that one," said Sarvikas.

I had some hands-on time with the 8110 4G, and I found the design Nokia ended up going with quite clunky; it's not all that easy to open and close the slider with one hand. It's hard to say how well the spring-release feature would've work on the light and plasticky 8110 4G, but it definitely would've made it a lot cooler.

TechRadar also spoke to HMD's CMO Pekka Rantala, who said Nokia is open to doing more of these reboots of classic phones. Hopefully, Nokia won't abandon all the cool features on those.