Yesterday I spotted a few sites reporting on a range of brightly coloured Android phones that are to be released in Japan on the KDDI au network. It got me thinking, why aren’t manufacturers testing the boundaries of design over here? Where is the Android flip phone? Where is the Android Candy Bar? Yes we have some slight quirky designs like the Motorola Flipout and we have Blackberry clones such as the Motorola Pro+ or the Acer beTouch e250. Also where are the feature phones?
Here are the pictures of the phone that got me thinking. It is called the Infobar C01. I really like the idea of this sort of device. How great would it be if you could things like this over here? Not necessarily the colours, it’s just the form factor that’s appealing. Different from the rest of the pack I guess.
Seeing these shots got me thinking. Every few months we just get a slight design change. A 4″ plus screen, a few less buttons than before, a slightly better camera, a slightly better cpu, blah blah blah. Nothing massively exciting. This is the trap HTC has fallen into, just churning out the same damn phone every few months with a slight variation on the theme. In the olden days HTC used to have several different ranges of phones. Can you remember the HTC S740 or S710, the HTC Advantage or Universal, the HTC Panda or Sedna or the HTC Artemis or Trinity. Each range had specific attributes. Large screen or small screen, keyboard or no keyboard, whatever you wanted was there. Now you just get a large screen and more often than not no keyboard. If the phone doesn’t come with the biggest screen possible it comes with a much smaller screen and a much weaker cpu meaning games etc are a struggle.
How many of you would have bought the new Motorola Razr if it was a new slim flip Android touchscreen phone? I know I would have. How about an Android touchscreen version of the Nokia N95? Yep I would get one of those too. The manufacturers who in the past made these different form factors are just concentrating on the standard template touchscreens. If you wondering I’m mainly thinking of Samsung and Sony Ericsson. I know quite a few people who do not want a Touchscreen phone because of the onscreen keyboard, yet they would like a touchscreen phone for the games. Surely something like the Infobar C01 would be ideal?
What style of device would you ideally have? A variation of the HTC Universal? Or the Razr I mentioned?
PS. If your wondering about the spec on the Infobar it is as follows.
- 3.2-inch screen with 854×480 resolution
- 8MP CMOS camera
- e-wallet function
- digital TV tuner
- infrared
- USB, microSDHC ports
- Bluetooth 3.0+EDR
- Wi-Fi
- CDMA/GSM/GPRS compatibility
- size: 130×52×12.3mm, weight: 106g
Source – TechCrunch – XDA Wiki
Good article JP…I have made many comments relating to this (I think I may even have completed an article back in the day for CSP).
My main concern is that the “market” is eating up the new phones, so they’ll continue to produce the same old….
I’d like to see a lot more diversity. For instance, does everyone need a Camera in their phone? Some people want Smartphones for better web access and media access – not for taking photos.
Another example would be the comment you made relating to flip phones- I’d love to see this.
I would love a razr flip with Android.
I fully agree. I remember when I always looked forward to the next upgrade because things had moved on so much in 12 months! My M5000 I think will always be my favourite, then came the S710 like you mentioned. So different loved it!
Only went with the Galaxy Note because it was slightly different from everything else. “Slightly”.
The Note features heavily in tomorrows installment of my problems with current mobile devices. (In a good way)
Prime time for retro style handsets with modern spec!
true dat
HTC Touch Dual form-factor.
oh yeah with the sliding keyboard. good call.