Magnates across industries are bringing back the vintage electronics for the zoomers who value authenticity.

Flip The Script
In a time of smartphone ubiquity where the sleek and streamlined were in the ascendant, the good ol&rsquo; flip phone was inherently dismissed as a thing of the past that stood no chance at a comeback. But then 2015 happened and the world seemed to have lost its collective mind when Adele dropped the music video for her chartbusting record Hello. It marked the songstress&rsquo; return to music after three years and naturally, fans couldn&rsquo;t help but anatomise every frame of the Xavier Dolan-directed video which led to the scene of her on the phone going viral&mdash;reminding us all of the lost art of hanging up with that satisfying snap-shut of the clamshell.

The flip phone has since gained more prominence that the thought of it bringing back the glory days of analogue or analogue-esque devices doesn&rsquo;t sound so outrageous anymore. The meteoric rise of the phone has a lot to do with its ever-increasing presence in pop culture. Between the LG C440 used by James Spader in the critically-acclaimed television show The Blacklist, the Binatone Blade featured in the female-fronted action film Gunpowder Milkshake and the dozens of Samsung Galaxy Z Flip smartphones highlighted in Olivia Rodrigo&rsquo;s Good 4 U music video, it&rsquo;s safe to say that the retro style cell has broken through or outgrown its cult- favourite status.

Just look at how Samsung is capitalising on the trend. The South Korean tech behemoth has yet to show any sign of slowing down since the launch of the Galaxy Z Flip early last year. As a matter of fact, it has recently expanded the collection with the unveiling of Galaxy Z Flip3 5G. The latest variant maintains the compact and pocketable design of the original while improving on many other aspects especially with the enhanced camera standards and a larger cover screen. The premium foldable smartphone is sure to give fellow industry players&mdash;including Motorola who had just revived its Razr flip phone last October&mdash;a run for their money.

In An Instance
Living in the age of Instagram means that a well-equipped camera is a definite must-have. It is no longer a luxury, it&rsquo;s a necessity. And as farcical as it may sound, these days, a single photo could make or break a person: why else would we spend so much time, money and energy, for one simple post, on gadgetry, editing tools and not to mention the setting up, all the work that goes into the making of each photo, before the camera starts clicking? On the brighter side of things, the make-old-new-again movement has prompted the resurgence of instant cameras. The term &ldquo;picture perfect&rdquo; now covers grainy or blurry images, with light leaks or overexposure.

While the turning point may differ from user to user, one of the landmark events that certainly made the self-developing film camera the talk of the town again was the release of Taylor Swift&rsquo;s 1989. The synth-pop album was in essence a nostalgia-ridden trip that was faithfully translated sonically and aesthetically. It came with no less than 65 Polaroid shots of Swift&mdash;all scribbled with song lyrics&mdash;one of which received the cover artwork treatment. The instant camera, prior to that, had a handful of cameos in other high-profile productions that include a hefty 10-second appearance in Lady Gaga and Beyonc&eacute;&rsquo;s Telephone music video a little over a decade ago.

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 The omnipresent allure of the Polaroid name, through its many ups and downs, has never really waned. It constantly reinvents itself to keep up with the times and it has done so without compromising that old-school quality it&rsquo;s known for. The brand&rsquo;s latest output, Polaroid Now+, brings the best of both worlds particularly with the Polaroid mobile app pairing feature that unlocks new photography tools like the aperture priority and tripod mode. Elsewhere, the Instax Mini 40 by Fujifilm makes an equally outstanding alternative with a luxurious embossed texture on its exterior, an easy-to-use selfie mode, exposure control and more.
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Roll The Tape
Analogue media players getting back in the masses&rsquo; good graces isn&rsquo;t anything to write home about in the year of 2021.The spike in vinyl sales since the re-emergence of the audio format about a decade ago as well as the endless launches of neo-record players should have tipped one off. That said, there&rsquo;s another music medium that has been gaining traction among the audiophiles, albeit discreetly, and is ripe for its own renaissance: the cassette player. The 1970s icon has been rendered in many shapes and forms, from the bulky boombox to the more compact version of it, and the more recent releases see the players getting a timely upgrade with modern designs and technology.

Ninm Lab&rsquo;s It&rsquo;s OK mini deck is one of those that makes an appealing case for why we should buy into the hype. More than competent for an entry-level portable player, it boasts a handful of convenient specs such as Bluetooth 5.0 capability. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the We Are Rewind tape deck by Romain Boudruche takes it up a notch with a solid aluminum exterior shaped into an emblematic boxy design. The combination of built-in microphone, stereo playback, Micro-USB rechargeable lithium battery and Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity further pushes it over the top as far as contemporary cassette players are concerned.

The resurrection of the Nineties cool kids&rsquo; companion, as also noted by Boudruche, came around the time of the release of 2014&rsquo;s Guardians of the Galaxy. The Marvel Studios-produced superhero flick brought forth a laundry list of banging needle drops and smack-dab in the middle of it all was the Sony TPS-L2, the first-ever Walkman stereo. It was arguably the most prominent prop in the movie as it served the main character, Peter Quill or Star-Lord, as a reminder of his life on Earth before his abduction. It&rsquo;s a subtle analogy on our connection to the past and the great lengths we&rsquo;re willing to go to preserve it&mdash;much like how we&rsquo;re preserving the cassette players today.

A Game Plan
Everybody needs a break every now and then. Adulting, while inevitable, does not have to be a be-all and end-all situation. That is why many efforts to bring back our favourite childhood pastimes in the last few years have been met with nothing less than overwhelming enthusiasm. Vintage 8-bit handheld game consoles have notably become the poster child of the campaign with a number of developers trying their hand at recreating the magic of Nintendo&rsquo;s Game Boy. The palmtop controller entered the cultural lexicon as early as the late 1980s with its ingenious combination of Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 hybrid processor, a monochrome LCD display and 4-channel stereo sound.

The sweeping influence of Game Boy has been well- documented through its countless appearances in films, television programmes, music videos and the like. Box office juggernaut&mdash;metric adjusted to reflect the unprecedented pandemic times&mdash;Space Jam: A New Legacy is among the latest intellectual properties to jump on the bandwagon and highlight the game console in question. On the other side of the fence, the definitive Y2K plaything PlayStation Portable by Sony has also received a fair amount of shout-outs on the big and small screens including Angelina Jolie&rsquo;s star vehicle Salt and YouTube Red&rsquo;s martial arts comedy series Cobra Kai.

Always keeping abreast of what&rsquo;s in and what&rsquo;s out in the fast-paced gaming scene, American label Panic has created its own nostalgia-filled joypad called Playdate. Anchored by an old-fashioned black-and-white screen, Playdate is embedded with new-age specs comprising a peppy little processor, Wi-Fi connectivity and a loudspeaker that packs a punch for a truly immersive session. It also carries a crank that flips out from the side to allow players to precisely dial into the action. It&rsquo;s an investment-worthy toy for grown-ups that is only rivalled by few such as the elegant, cartridge-based Evercade by Blaze Entertainment and the emulation-based RG351V by Anbernic.

Hipsters Don’t Lie: Electronics from the past are making a comeback

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