The team wanted to create an "expressive" and personalisable handset beyond the usual business-oriented mobile phone market, inspired by the Casio G-Shock and Sony Walkman designs.

The 3210 was the first device that came preloaded with Nokia's Composer software, which allowed users to manually 'compose' monotone ringtones.

A few months after its UK release, some mobile phone repair shops offered customers a handset upgrade to the vibrate function for a small fee.

A combination of cutting-edge features such as internal antennas and T9 text entry ensured the 3210 huge commercial success.

The inclusion of 3 games, changeable "Xpress-on" covers (as on the previous Nokia 5110), an internal antenna, customisable ringtones and competitive prices led to the handset's huge popularity with those aged 15–25.

[9] In 2024, HMD Global announced the revival version of Nokia 3210,[10] with 4G, 2MP camera, IPS display, USB-C, running Series 30+ based on Mocor OS and featuring Cloud Phone technology[11] support.