Concept Mobiles That Should/n’t Become a Reality

We know the various kinds of mobile handset form factors from the Candy-bars to the Slide out QWERTY. We also know that the latest and possible future trend is of course, touch technology and the race is on to see which handset will take that technology to the next level. One of my favorite sites, Yanko Design, has a group of individuals who design concept technology and other things and they’ve come with ideas that could seriously rock the market… if they ever made it to production of course.

While researching for an article on my favorite concept phones, I did come across a few that should have stayed in their minds and never made it out. With all due respect to the designers (and there’s plenty of that) here are my choices for handsets that I’d love to see make it to production someday. While these futuristic buggers look like something we should and could see in the future there are those I hope, never make it past this concept stage. For your amusement I’ve listed some of those as well.
Top concept mobiles I’d like to see make it past this stage –
LG Synthesis –

Designed by Andrew Suenghyun Kim, LG’s Synthesis mobile was created for the LG design competition. The designer’s inspiration was nature itself, to be more precise, photosynthesis, hence the name. It’s a gorgeous handset complete with eco friendly solar panels to charge the BT headset and a charging cum speaker dock that looks like a tree branch. It also features a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a 5mp camera and a 1.3MP secondary for video calling (very neatly hidden in front) and was also designed to house a whopping 32GB of space. Nature never looked hotter.
SE Ai –

Although this was something that was designed about 2 years ago and much of a fingerprint magnet it may seem like, I love the design concept of the Sony Ericsson Ai. The chocolate glossy finish and classy lighting for the keypad looks great with the front they’ve gone with. It featured a 3.2MP camera, 2GB of space and came in a slider form factor as well as a standard candy bar. Personally, I’d have gone with the slider.

Nokia Morph

Nokia’s Morph may be exactly what the future of mobile technology could be like. The idea is a joint nanotechnology concept, developed by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and the University of Cambridge (UK). Morph is a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to comfortably even wear the device stylishly on their person. Of course this is not something we can hope to see for a few more years, but wouldn’t you like to?
Motorola KRE-8 –

This may very well be one of the weirdest designs I’ve ever come across and I’ve come across some doozies while researching. But I still think the concept idea of this “handset” is brilliant and given the chance I’d love to test it for real. The designer Jose Tomas DeLuna’s whole inspiration when designing this handset was to thrill the audiophile who loves mixing and playing around with their music. The handset also manages to combine what can only be construed as Nintendo Wii style functionality with a mobile phone. It uses sensors and accelerometers to figure out the gestures like - Instrument Mode (guitar, drums, violin), Mix Mode and Record Mode which is a full circle for creating music. It even has a touchscreen display (of course) which makes it simpler to adjust and edit files. It supports GPS and music created on the KRE-8 can be tagged with co-ordinates as well. There are not too many words to describe this handset but Stupendous does come to mind first.
iPhone Concept -

I came across a bucket load of iPhone concept designs that were out there and I have to say most were absolutely fantastic and in my opinion, Apple would have done so much better had they gone with one of these. Of course it’s not like the iPhone isn’t good looking as is, but it is kind of ‘blah’ and generic even with the 3G’s sleeker design. But amongst all the cool designs I saw, the one I’ve include appealed to me the most. It was simple, sleek and seemed like it could offer the most amount of functionality. With an iPod Click Wheel for navigation and a QWERTY keypad for input, this concept is certainly an eye catcher. The genius behind this design is a CG artist named Olivier Demangel.

And then there were those that should remain - although technologically advanced as they may seem - on the drawing board. Here are my choices for the Top Concept Mobiles that shouldn’t make it past the drawing board -
Clamshell Glass Phone -

Image Source - Designer Mac Funamizu

This is purely my opinion of course, but a flip phone made of glass is nothing more than a fingerprint magnet and trust me those prints can get really annoying especially when they’re obstructing something on the display. Plus you’ll have to worry about scratches.

Lenovo Poison -

Image Source - Designer: Ryan Ma

The concept is rather too simplistic in it’s candybar form with a transparent display module. The keypad looks quite average and I guess it could be appealing in a ‘haute couture’ sort of way, but it did nothing for me.
Chinese Disney Phone

There’s really nothing I can say about this handset. Concept or reality is irrelevant. It should not have been thought of. But to each his own.
There’s a lot to be said about the future of mobile phone technology in terms of design and of course the kind of technology itself. I’m looking forward to what the manufacturers will come out with and itching to see what the next step will look and feel like. Perhaps you guys could share with us and the other readers what your favorite concept mobiles are, at least the ones you think should definitley make it to mass production and the ones that shouldn’t as well. So leave your comments or email me and I’ll write them up in the next feature. (link)