14 DAY TRIAL // After so many rumors regarding a Sony Ericsson PSP phone, finally someone gives us an idea of how a gaming phone should look. The entire mobile community awaits the so-called 'gaming phone', either from Sony Ericsson, Nokia or any other handset manufacturer. We already have camera phones, music phones, how long till a dedicated gaming phone will be out on the market?
Well, by the look of it, there's not much time left till we'll put our hands on one of these devices. Just recently it has been revealed that Nokia registered a strange patent that looks just like the above mentioned 'gaming phone'.
The released patent speaks about a 'handheld electronic device' comprising a housing and a retractable handle, the device being arranged to allow the handle to be retracted into the housing along a sliding axis to provide a retracted handle position and extended out of the housing along the sliding axis.
Moreover, Nokia's patent looks more like a portable gaming console with camera and phone capabilities. The slim and easy to carry form of the device suggests that it will be an all-in-one device that will definitely make dedicated devices like MP3 players, PSP's, mobile phones or cameras less desirable.
More excerpts from the patent: "... is a computer gaming console, input elements 121, 122 being provided for user input by the left hand of a user and input elements 123, 124 being provided for input by the right hand of user. The games are displayed on the display 110, but in other embodiments, the games can additionally or alternatively be provided for display on another electronic device associated with the device. In the present case, the device 100 also allows the user to make radiotelephone calls (e.g. using cellular telephone functionality), take pictures (camera on reverse of device 100 is not shown), and play recorded/streamed audio (e.g. music/speech etc)."
Sadly, after the announced delay of the N-Gage mobile gaming platform, we're rather pessimistic about a possible official announcement anytime soon. Still, the idea looks great, maybe even better than Sony's PSP phone, but I wonder how viable is it?
