Nokia Trivia
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54 free Nokia trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Nokia trivia quiz traces the Finnish company from an 1865 pulp mill to 5G networks and the moon. The easy questions are the ones every former owner knows: which country Nokia comes from, the indestructible phone of 2000, the game everyone played on the bus and the famous ringtone. From there it moves into the surprising back-story of rubber boots, cables, televisions, respirators and gas masks, and the 1990s decision to bet everything on telecoms. The harder end is for tech historians and pub-quiz specialists: the world's first GSM call, the first commercially available GSM phone, the Communicator's Intel chip, the guitarist who unknowingly wrote the Nokia tune, the N-Gage flop, the peak 40 percent market share, the burning platform memo, the Windows Phone gamble, the 5.4-billion-euro Microsoft sale, HMD's revival, the Alcatel-Lucent and Bell Labs deals, the NASA lunar network and the 2023 logo change. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the company, its phones and its executives before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Apple, technology history and Finland quizzes next.
30 of 54 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which sci-fi film made the curved Nokia 8110 famous as its hero's slide-open phone?
The Matrix
The Matrix gave Keanu Reeves's Neo an 8110, and Nokia's 1999 press release boasted that its phones created the vital link between the dream world and reality.
Q 02Nokia began as a pulp mill; in 1967 it merged with a rubber works and a maker of what?
Cables
Cables: the Finnish Cable Works had started an electronics division in 1960, and its radio telephones grew into Nokia's phone business.
Q 03Nokia took its name from what?
A Finnish town where its second mill stood
A Finnish town where its second mill stood gave the firm its name, and within a few years all of its operations had moved there.
Q 04Which German industrial giant agreed in 2006 to combine its network equipment business with Nokia's?
Siemens
Siemens and Nokia formed Nokia Siemens Networks, and once Nokia sold its phones to Microsoft, that networks business became the heart of the company.
Q 05Which footwear did an old Nokia unit make that is still sold under the Nokian name?
Wellington boots
Wellington boots came from Nokia's rubber business, which it shed as it chose to focus on telecoms.
Q 06In 1988, which Swedish company sold Nokia its computer division?
Ericsson
Ericsson's computer unit was part of CEO Kari Kairamo's electronics buying spree, but the computer business struggled and Nokia sold it off within a few years.
Q 07Which country became a major, highly profitable market for Nokia by the late 1970s?
Soviet Union
Soviet Union: US worries that Nokia's digital telephone exchanges could reach the Soviets helped push Finland into the Cocom export-control group in 1987.
Q 08In the 1980s, Nokia bought factories across Europe making what, a business that later lost money?
Televisions
Televisions: CEO Kari Kairamo bought them as he bet on consumer electronics, but his successors sold that business off to focus on telecoms.
Q 09In a 2011 memo, what did Nokia's CEO warn staff the company was standing on?
A burning platform
A burning platform: the memo told of a man on a blazing North Sea oil rig who jumps into icy water, and days later Nokia teamed up with Microsoft.
Q 10What was Nokia's first mobile phone, launched in 1982?
The Mobira Senator for cars
The Mobira Senator for cars came out under the Mobira name, which Nokia later dropped so that every phone it made carried the Nokia brand.
Q 11In 2008, Nokia said it would stop selling its phones in which country?
Japan
Japan: Nokia led the world phone market, yet it had won almost no share of Japan's, which local brands dominated.
Q 12Which US digital-map maker did Nokia agree to buy for $8.1 billion in 2007?
Navteq
Navteq became a takeover target once satnav maker TomTom bid for its main rival, Tele Atlas, and its maps later grew into Nokia's Here service.
Q 13Which CEO, appointed in 1992, refocused Nokia on mobile phones and sold off its older businesses?
Jorma Ollila
Jorma Ollila took over a loss-making Nokia and led its turnaround.
Q 21The Nokia tune is taken from Gran Vals, a guitar piece by which Spanish composer?
Francisco Tarrega
Francisco Tarrega wrote the waltz, and two Nokia executives picked out the short excerpt of it that became the famous ringtone.
Q 22Which headline feature did Nokia's 2013 Lumia 1020 smartphone carry?
A 41-megapixel camera
A 41-megapixel camera: it combined pixels into sharper 5-megapixel photos and took over from the Symbian-based 808 PureView.
Q 23Nokia co-founded Symbian in 1998 with which PDA maker leading the effort?
Psion
Psion supplied the software: its EPOC operating system became Symbian, which stayed Nokia's main smartphone system until 2011.
Q 14Which company did Nokia overtake in October 1998 to become the best-selling mobile phone brand?
Motorola
Motorola lost the top spot as Nokia won young, fashion-minded buyers with phones like the 5110 and its swappable covers.
Q 15What were the colourful, replaceable back covers on the Nokia 5110 and 3210 called?
Xpress-on
Xpress-on covers let owners restyle their phones, and third-party makers soon filled whole walls of phone shops with custom covers.
Q 16The Nokia 3210 was notable as the first mass-market phone without what?
A protruding external antenna
A protruding external antenna: hiding it inside, along with T9 predictive text, helped make the 3210 a runaway hit.
Q 17The Nokia 3310 sold about 126 million units; which nickname did its toughness earn it?
Brick
Brick: the 3310's popularity and sturdiness made it so iconic that it was relaunched in 2017, nearly 17 years after its debut.
Q 18Which game was one of the four built into the original Nokia 3310?
Space Impact
Space Impact, a side-scrolling shooter against waves of aliens, was later recreated for other phones.
Q 19Which handy extra did Nokia build into its basic 1100 phone?
Flashlight
Flashlight: Nokia built the 1100 for first-time buyers in fast-growing markets such as India and China, and it became the world's most popular phone.
Q 20Which classic game did Nokia first preinstall on its 6110 phone?
Snake
Snake turned the phone into a pocket time-killer, and its sequel, Snake II, later came built into the Nokia 3310.
Q 24Nokia's 7650, announced in 2001 with a built-in camera, was built around which new messaging format?
MMS
MMS let people send photos, and Nokia promised that by 2003 every new phone it launched would support these multimedia messages.
Q 25Nokia's billionth phone, a basic 1100 sold in 2005, went to a buyer in which African country?
Nigeria
Nigeria: the sale came as Nokia pushed affordable phones into growth markets such as Brazil, India, China and much of Africa.
Q 26Which German optics maker did Nokia partner with in 2005 for its camera phones?
Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss optics became a selling point for Nokia camera phones and helped earn them a strong reputation for photography.
Q 27What was the N-Gage, released in 2003?
A phone-handheld game console hybrid
A phone-handheld game console hybrid, the N-Gage was mocked for its taco shape, and players had to pull out the battery just to change games.
Q 28Nokia's global market share peaked above 40% in late 2007, the year which rival handset launched?
iPhone
iPhone sales trailed Nokia's at first, but Nokia was slow to respond to devices like it.
Q 29What was Maemo, developed by Nokia in 2005?
A Linux-based operating system
A Linux-based operating system, Maemo ran Nokia's internet tablets from 2005 and later merged with Intel's Moblin to become MeeGo.
Q 30What was Ovi, introduced by Nokia in August 2007?
An umbrella name for its Internet services
An umbrella name for its Internet services, Ovi was Nokia's bid for new income from music, games and maps.