I could not write about the 8210 without giving its younger sibling, the 8310 a mention! I had this exact handset (the grey one) and loved it! Like the 8210 it was very neat and compact. It had a more sturdy feel to it than the 8210 also, but was a little more bulky, possibly due to the inclusion of an FM radio.
The 8310 was the first phone I remember seeing with an FM radio fitted, and I absolutely loved the style and appearance of this phone. I suppose it was a bit cheesy with the LED backlit keypad, but in its day it was different, modern and higly desirable.
I actually still have this phone, though the power button broke, and, like the 8210 would love to see Nokia produce a small handset like this again.
For me this marked the Zenith of Nokias achievements. They produced a couple of other smart, sleek looking handsets after this, which introduced colour screens and polyphonic tones, and subsequently cameras (with the 7 series). However, these features were Nokias downfall.
Nokia had only really produced bar style phones, which were fine as long as you did not need a large display area. With the introduction of cameras, and multimedia features, so the demand rose for larger screens. Nokia simply could not accomodate these screens neatly on their handsets and they began to lose popularity.
The handsets they began making were ugly, tiny buttons cramped below an awkwardly shaped screen. They did briefly try to make some flip style phones, but they were inferior to those of other manufacturers.
It is only the advent of touch scren phones and slider phones that have (in my opinion) really allowed Nokia to start recapturing their lost glory. I think with these new desisgns / structures they can once again dominate, though, their interfaces are not quite as well designed as they once were.
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