Folding Plica concept phone makes our eyes widen

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 3rd 2008 at 8:39AM

Mmm, touchscreens. Expansive, gorgeous touchscreens. That pretty much sums up our initial impressions after taking one hard look at James Piatt's Plica concept. As you can tell, this foldable cellie opens up to reveal a pair of touchscreens just begging to be used for web browsing, texting and photo viewing. There's also a mini-USB port and a headphone jack, though we'd certainly be interested to see how he plans on slipping a battery in there that lasts more than a hour or two. Can we get a major handset manufacturer to look in this direction -- pretty please?

[Via gadgetell]

Filed under: Handsets, Others

Tags: art, cellphone, concept, design, handset, James Piatt, JamesPiatt, plica, smartphone, touchscreen

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Haxxy @ Aug 3rd 2008 12:32PM

I think manufacturers aren't interested in this type of design mainly because of that unavoidable line across the middle of the screen(s). In terms of that concept, though, I think it'd be a bit hassling for one who finds it too small to touch type, but too large to use the thumbs only. It seems much more useful when folded in half, but then images, video, and web pages could be viewed when unfolded.

Neutral

Nal @ Aug 3rd 2008 2:54PM

Haxxy's being completely pessimistic. This design has much potential. Sure, viewing a movie with such a wide screen would be nice but I do agree that the line in the middle will be a hassle. But I mean, they can always make one screen bigger than the other, so one screen will do the main controls, as a keyboard would and the top would be sort of like a monitor. I don't think this device will be so big as Haxxy made it sound that you wouldn't be able to use your thumbs only. It looks like the perfect size actually. There are other "folding" design concepts for phones though, I forgot where else the others are but I hope somebody picks them up. Because I mean, there's flipping, sliding, rotating, touch. I think folding is the next thing coming. Just to switch it up a bit. I'd sure get one if it works out correctly. We should see some interesting phone designs picked up by big manufacturers in the coming years.

Neutral

StarrWulfe @ Aug 4th 2008 9:43AM

I'm still wondering why this concept never occurred to anyone... well anyone other than Nintendo (looks like an overgrown DS, right?)

Maybe because of the battery power necessary to drive 2 screens? Well make both of them OLED or even E-ink... Those 2 technologies are actually mature enough now to mass produce.

Sign me up for one with a soft-radio (that's a radio that is encoded in software not hardware, so you can use it with any tech [GSM, WiFi, WiMAX, etc] and any band the antenna will support) Throw in a generous helping of 32gig on-board memory, a micro-sd slot (or 2) and a 8MP camera on-board... then have it run Android!

Wonder-phone powers, Activate!!