6 Phone Form Factors We Want Back
Don’t all phones look the same now? Nokia has taken the
initiative to bring back many classic phones: Nokia 3110 and 8110 4G are prime
examples. There have been several other phones over the years that impressed us
with unique form-factors. Karan Bajaj rounds up some of the examples we sorely
miss
Nokia Communicator
Since Nokia is betting big on nostalgia by launching
updated versions of older phones, we hope they bring back the Communicator too.
In case, you haven’t heard of the Communicator, it was considered one of the
most futuristic and premium smartphones of its time. There were different
versions of it, but typically, it had a smaller colour display up front with
alphanumeric keyboard for basic use. For advanced use, the phone opened up like
a laptop to reveal a massive, landscape colour display with QWERTY keyboard on
the inside. The only issue was the bulky and heavy design. Power users never
minded though — they wouldn’t have anything else.
Moto Razr V3 i
The Razr is phone that had a cult following back in
the day. It was the sleekest flip phone at that time and that too with a metal
body, etched keys and electroluminescent backlight. It had a small external
display for notifications and a large internal screen. The V3i was also one of
the few phones at that time to offer support for microSD expansion. It was so
popular that Moto launched it in a number of colours including a special gold
colour. One issue with the sleek design was that it had a poor battery backup.
Sony Ericsson P990i
This was Sony’s competitor to Nokia’s Communicator.
It was a hybrid candybar shape with a flip element. The lower half with
physical alphanumeric keyboard could be flipped open. Under the flip was a full
QWERTY keyboard for faster typing. It had a 2.7-inch touchscreen colour display
in 2005 and that too with handwriting recognition support. On the left, it had
a jog dial for navigation and selection. In addition to all this, it also came
with a stylus for input — the stylus had a proper slot in the phone for storage
too, similar to what we see in Samsung Note smartphones today. Like the
communicator, the P990i also had a fat design thanks to its feature set.
Nokia 6800
This Nokia phone had a slim design but with a unique
fold out keypad design. By default, it had a colour display with an
alphanumeric keypad, but you could flip out the keypad over the display to
reveal a QWERTY keypad. The keypad itself was split in half with the display in
the center. The display would automatically rotate when the keypad was opened.
The design was a bit odd but it was a boon for anyone who spent a lot of time
typing.
HTC 7 Pro
While the HTC 7 Pro was never very popular, the
design stoodout. Slider style phones typically offered a mechanism to reveal a
QWERTY keypad but the 7 Pro’s slide-up mechanism was different. Instead of
keeping the display flat, the HTC 7 Pro’s slider mechanism popped the colour
display at an angle for easier use on a desktop. This made the phone look like
a mini laptop compared to the standard sliders.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
While Razer, Nubia and Xiaomi have launched
modern-day gaming phones, we would want Sony to bring back the Xperia Play for
mobile gamers. The Xperia Play had a large colour touchscreen for daily use.
For gaming, it had a slideout gamepad inspired by a PlayStation controller. The
gamepad had a D-pad on the left, PlayStation style action button on the right,
two trackpads in the center and two trigger buttons on top. Imagine how much
better PUBG will be with a hardware gamepad, accessible anytime from within
your phone.
ET7NOV18
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