Detachable -- Engadget Mobile

detachable posts

Sony Ericsson files patent for "detachable housings"

by Chris Ziegler posted Feb 6th 2008 @ 3:55AM

It's hard enough for some of us to go a few months without losing a one-piece cellphone, but imagine the hilarity that'll ensue if Sony Ericsson makes good on a recent patent application to break 'em into multiple pieces? The basic idea is to make the phone's body independent of the display itself, and while the app doesn't do a particularly stellar job of explaining why this is valuable, we gather from the drawings and diagrams that you'd flip the screen between front and back depending on whether you're using the phone in the open or closed position. The pivoting clamshell design in devices like Samsung's FlipShot seems a lot more robust to us, but then again, probably 75 percent of these patent apps never become actual products, so we won't worry about it too much just yet.

[Via Unwired View]

Patent applicant envisions PDA with "removable cellphone"

by Darren Murph posted Apr 12th 2007 @ 2:15AM

Sure, it's fair game to cram extra features into PDAs, but stuffing a "removable cellphone" into a personal digital assistant's hidden compartment isn't likely to go over well in this millennium. Nevertheless, a hopeful patent filing spills the deets concerning a comical device that apparently disregards the handsets we so often refer to as smartphones, as it describes a diminutive dedicated cellphone that clips into a PDA when not needed. Additionally, the mystical concept allows each device to sync information with one another, and claims to be a "do-it-all" machine that curiously requires two separate devices to pull it all off. Of course, the only obvious perks here are the ability the downsize and carry along just the mobile while your nagging relative enjoys a few of your MP3s on the PDA side, but considering the blossoming market of true all-in-one conglomerates, we don't see this one moving one inch past the paperwork. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via Textually]