Nokia's aeon "full surface screen" cellphone concept

by Conrad Quilty-Harper posted Oct 8th 2006 at 1:44PM

Nokia's research and development team have kicked it up a gear with an attractive "aeon" concept phone showing up in the R&D section of the company's website. The most prominent design feature of aeon is a touchscreen that stretches over the full surface area of the phone, similar to BenQ-Siemens's Black box concept phone we saw recently. Currently mobile technology isn't quite up to realizing this fantasy, but we'll sleep better tonight knowing that at least one of the cellphone industry's biggest names shares the same dream as we do -- BenQ's dream didn't count, unfortunately.

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia

Tags: Aeon, BenQ-Siemens, Black box, BlackBox, Concept, Dream

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Highest Ranked

phil @ Oct 8th 2006 1:54PM

BRILLIANT, looks jus brilliant.

Highly Ranked

HaDes @ Oct 8th 2006 4:00PM

nice photoshop work. but when will it be "hands on"?

Highest Ranked

Marlos Hill @ Oct 8th 2006 3:00PM

Man, thats absolutely gorgeous

Neutral

jabxyz @ Oct 8th 2006 3:10PM

Jeez, Hot fucking shit, just when I thought that the Nokia R&D department was an oxymoron (very, very pedestrian offerings) they step up boldly like this. I don't know who they just hired but they need to keep him and promote him to head of department. My view, they need to pour every R & D cent they have into bringing this to market asap. This could be their Razr. I wanna beta test!

Neutral

Ross @ Oct 8th 2006 3:27PM

i would love it, until i messed it up, that thing has to be 20 times way too easy to break...

Highly Ranked

Rai @ Oct 8th 2006 3:52PM

If they do that... I'll be a Nokia user once again... definately a turning point in design concepts.

Highest Ranked

Jason Brown @ Oct 8th 2006 4:23PM

Wow! That is absolutely beautiful!

Highest Ranked

Brian @ Oct 8th 2006 11:15PM

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Highly Ranked

mediaphile @ Oct 8th 2006 11:29PM

Full surface touchpad means no tactile feedback and constant accidental activation of the onscreen controls as you fumble with the phone.

It looks sweet, but I bet it would function horribly.

Neutral

Scott @ Oct 8th 2006 11:36PM

That is about the coolest thing I have seen all week. Does anyone know what the odds of production of these kinds of concepts might be, or how long it would take before one of these buggers was in my pocket?

Neutral

Lizzi Young @ Oct 8th 2006 11:51PM

It is just AWESOME!

Neutral

mj @ Oct 9th 2006 12:14AM

damn holy good... ^_-

Highly Ranked

Manan Bajoria @ Oct 9th 2006 12:47AM

that is the coolest phonre design tht i hv ever seen in my life..will it ever come in production??

http://technolatest.blogspot.com

Neutral

heston @ Oct 9th 2006 12:59AM

cool

Neutral

Brian @ Oct 9th 2006 1:41AM

I still like the Onyx concept better. :)

Neutral

SELaplana @ Oct 9th 2006 11:42PM

does it mean that edge to edge of this phone is the phone screen and that the buttons are just images shown on that screen? Ohhh, this is good but it's very fragile, i think. my way of bringing up a phone never suit for this kind of phone.

Neutral

JPWRana @ Oct 23rd 2006 7:50PM

Wowzers to the max!!! This is the shizzle!!! Why can't we have phones like this?

Neutral

GiGoMaN @ Oct 9th 2006 1:47AM

What the chocolate phone WISHED it was!!!

Neutral

CasperC @ Oct 9th 2006 3:59AM

OMG... Nokia, start the production right away. Don't think about costs-benefits... Just make it. I'll buy it at what evet pricetag you put on it. Now now now... That's the coolest and slickest design ever!!!!

Neutral

Mr Fantastic @ Oct 9th 2006 5:57AM

i am stunned most of nokias phones thes days look so comon and mediocre but this is amazing. if they made it im sure it will outsell all RAZR models

Neutral

Dr Nic @ Oct 9th 2006 6:12AM

Imagine if its fully programmable. You could do special effects with the key pad when you press buttons. Make the numbers zip up the screen and fill in the phone number you're typing etc.

Highly Ranked

Folletto Malefico @ Oct 9th 2006 6:15AM

I posted a concept like this on march:
http://im.digitalhymn.com/2006/03/21/la-mia-idea-di-un-apple-iphone/ (italian only).

About the "accidental enable issue": that shouldn't be a problem. Those kind of surface uses the natural conductivity of the hand and so it can't be "touched" by anything that you could have in a pocket. :)

Also, it could be locked by a specific gesture, a thing that will be REALLY cool instead of the old "keyboard lock". :)

About the feedback, that could be a problem, but it could be resolved. One solution is a "pushable" surface (like a recent Apple filing) or using a wheel-like interface (a "push" doesn't have feedback, but if you pass the finger on the surface you'll have a passive feedback).

So, I think that this solution, if well designed and engineered (UI and UX experts, please) could be really kickass. :)

Neutral

Marco (Griffith) Jardim @ Oct 9th 2006 6:56AM

The best thing about this concept is that it looks like it actually fits in your pocket!

Neutral

Justin Thompson @ Oct 9th 2006 9:12AM

Wow, that is incredible. I can't wait to see these out on the market. I've dreamed of a phone like that before! I just hope they can pull it off without issues. I think this could definitely be a whole new generation of cell phones. They could seriously take on the RAZR with this.

Neutral

Greg the pilot @ Oct 10th 2006 7:38AM

FANTASIC !!! Sure Razor KIller... B U T .... it will never be manufactured. It's just a project like several others that never materialized.

Neutral

Texrat @ Oct 10th 2006 6:33PM

Look out, Moto, Nokia's coming back!

Neutral

Shon @ Oct 9th 2006 3:55PM

hells yeah. now THATS innovation (and teh sexness). kick up that R&D and make a working proto!

Neutral

maclaren @ Oct 10th 2006 2:12AM

It looks very nice from a industrial design perspective, but I wonder how easy it is to use. Without any tactile feel for the button areas, I bet this will be a usability nightmare.

Neutral

ps2 @ Oct 10th 2006 12:51AM

i see the read link gos to press photos. where is the story that actually goes with those photos? really curious.

Neutral

mike @ Oct 10th 2006 2:27AM

what a beautiful phone,but i storngly want to know where is show about the nokia 8888?

Neutral

peSHIr @ Oct 10th 2006 11:03AM

I browsed the linked site and found the following under Events. Looks like the PDF containing the slides of some presentation that mentioned/showed this prototype and a lot more Nokia (wants to have/has) up its sleeves.

http://www.nokia.com/NOKIA_COM_1/Press/Press_Events/Nokia_Technology_Media_Briefing/Ryhanen_Huopaniemi_03-10-2006.pdf

Neutral

smokey the mouse @ Oct 11th 2006 1:10AM

Let's see... a hand-held digital personal commuication device with a dynamic, contextual full-screen touch interface... where have I seen that before...

Can you say "Video iPod" and "Apple Legal Department?"

Neutral

E71 @ Oct 11th 2006 4:43PM

I generally despise Nokia for their butt-ugly phones but if they pull this one off, all I can say is WOW. I mean, I wouldn't buy one for myself as I'm into pda-phones packed with so many features, the battery dies on you every 3 hours or so but hey, I may get one for my mom.

Neutral

Shane Emami @ Oct 12th 2006 8:58PM

Bet the thing will have software faults out of its @ss, which Nokia will take 12months to develop a very temporary "fix" and will have a realistic battery life of 23mins and 12seconds like an 8800...standbye only, even though it'll have an "extended battery life"

Highly Ranked

David K.... @ Oct 19th 2006 7:50PM

Wow, dun u just wanna round it up and have sex with it lol....

in any case ima buying that when it comes out.... besides they probebly already made like the final version, but nokia is being gay like all the rest of the companies and not releasing it.. wth r they waiting for...

DK--

Neutral

Mobile360 @ Oct 21st 2006 9:40AM

LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

Need to get one, but they're comming out in a year or two.

Neutral

skule @ Oct 21st 2006 1:23PM

I`ll Buy this even if it cant make a call!!! at least a modern mob 8D

Neutral

Corpus Callosum @ Oct 22nd 2006 10:11AM

It is pretty clear to me that Nokia is desperately trying to stake a claim on prior art before Apple succeeds in patenting every single aspect of it's video iPod and iPhone. These concept photos (certainly photoshoped) are almost guaranteed to be in direct response to recent Apple patent filings so that Nokia can attempt to claim they had the same in development and bypass patent lawsuits when they attempt to copy the iPhone. But it may already be too late for Nokia.

Neutral

Ray @ Oct 22nd 2006 8:11AM

Simply beastly, already I have desire to have it

Bye,
Ray

Neutral

js @ Oct 23rd 2006 6:32AM

If you check that pdf (page 1-5-10) provided by peSHIr, you’ll note that it's powered by a hydrogen fuel cell (middle bar/cross) and that the release buttons are at both sides of the middle bar. The screens are two separate parts.

This is the one of the coolest phones I ever laid eyes on. Gimme, gimme, gimme!!

Highly Ranked

Monkey dodo @ Oct 23rd 2006 9:27AM

Wet my pants when I saw this phone. Ooohh Ahhh!

Neutral

SykeSam @ Oct 25th 2006 4:02AM

WoW. Sexy phone:-P When is the release date?

Neutral

HandCellPhone @ Oct 26th 2006 5:45PM

The concept phone is beautiful but there isn't any navigation buttons. So, how are we going to use it? Sometime beautiful things just seems too stupid in logic.

Neutral

Rune Ecklon @ Oct 29th 2006 12:24PM

This is not an original idea by any means. I myself and without being a product designer or similar thought about this kind of approach years ago when the tech wasnt there yet.
Its a logical step from what we have today.

People are too easily wowed these days.

Neutral