A post is being shared on social media with a claim that a Nokia phone had 70% charge even after switching it on after a period of 20 years. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: Nokia 3310 had 70% charge when it was switched on after 20 years.
Fact: This news was picked up from a satirical website and is being shared as a true event. Nokia 3310 was launched in 2000, so only 19 years passed since its launch. Also, the person in the photo is Dave Mitchell (not Kevin Moody) and he was using the phone since 2000. He didn’t use the phone for some years but he never claimed that he forgot about the phone and found it later with 70% charge. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When searched about the news on Google, it was found that the same news, with similar claims, was also published by some reputed news agencies [News18 Hindi (Archive), Dainik Bhaskar (Archive) and Navbharat Times (Archive)]. All three of them claimed that the person in the picture is ‘Kevin Moody’. But the three articles have some minute changes in their claims. While the News18 claimed that the phone was switched on after 20 years, Danik Bhaskar and Navbharat Times claimed that the phone was 19 years old.
In the News 18 article, it can be found the source for the news is an article on ‘Chester Bugle’. The title of the article is, ‘NOKIA 3310 Found in Drawer After 20 Years Still Has 70% Battery’. But, Nokia 3310 was launched in 2000 (so, only 19 years passed since its launch). Also, in the ‘About Us’ section of ‘Chester Bugle’, it can be seen that it is a satirical website.
When the image in the post was run through Yandex Reverse Image Search, an article published by ‘Express.co.uk’ in 2017 with similar images was found in the search results. According to the article, the person in the photo is ‘Dave Mitchell’ and he still uses his Nokia 3310, which he bought in 2000. While the article mentioned that Dave stopped using his Nokia 3310 for some years, nowhere it was mentioned that he forgot about his phone and it was with 70% charge when he found it in a table drawer after some years. These false claims can be found in the satirical article. Not only ‘Express.co.uk’, but also Indian news websites published articles about Dave in 2017, which can be read here, here and here.
To sum it up, ‘Nokia 3310 had 70% charge when switched on after 20 years’ is fake news.
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