The CUin5 - a Keypad for Each Face

What's the most important in a mobile phone? Why, the keypad and how convenient it is to dial a number, of course. At least when it comes to the CUin5 concept phone, the keypad is essential, mainly because there is no space whatsoever on the mobile phone's surface that does not include a key.

Reportedly, the CUin5 was "inspired by countless big company design specs that all outlined more or less the same thing: a 'super-practical' interface with the all-too-typical feature set."

For some reason, the mobile phone comes with a keypad, microphone and speaker on each side, which means that if you were to quickly take it out of a pocket, you wouldn't need to turn it over or align it right side up, but just start dialing the number.

This won't be hard to do seeing as you can't possibly miss the keypad. And apparently, whichever surface the user touches first will become active and light up, while the others will lock into place.

The fact that it doesn't include a screen, which most of us are pretty accustomed to finding in a mobile phone, could prove to be 'slightly' inconvenient, as you can't really see what you're dialing. Then again, it's pure fiction, it looks good and it'll probably never become a mass-market mobile phone.

The mobile phone is a one of several sci-fi 'Design Fictions' that will be included in branko Lukic's to be released book with the title 'non.object'. The book will be released later this year. Cuin5's designer has spent 5 years at frogdesign and later on moved to IDEO where he designed several other very interesting products like the TaylorMade r500 golf club or the Zyliss salad spinner. According to the designer, this handset offers a new point of view, a new way of thinking, a new way forward. In the end, it's up to each one of us to love it or hate it.