The MatchBox - a Minimalistic Concept Phone

The designer of the concept phone admits to hating 'hi-tech, hi-solution, colorful, sleek, pretty�' mobile phones. Since most mobile phone users wouldn't quite agree with this opinion, most mobile phones of today are either hi-tech, sleek, colorful or all in one.

And up until now, users that were looking for an extremely simple to use low-end device didn't have much of a choice when considering to buy a mobile phone.

However, lately, many such phones have been released by leading mobile phone manufacturers or presented as concepts, and some of them are so simple that they remind you of the mobile phones people used quite a few years ago, coming only with calling and text messaging capabilities.

Instead of constantly complaining, the designer of the Matchbox concept phone decided to do something about it and come up with a minimalist and somewhat odd looking device. Its name comes from the way it opens, and in contrast with typical slider or flip phones, it slides open to reveal its keypad, very similar to a match box.

From the looks of it, all this phone can do is make or receive calls and maybe come with text messaging. While some users would be quite happy to own such a phone, that also looks rather small and easy to carry in a pocket, as most concepts of this type, the MatchBox will most likely never become an actual product. But it does come with a pretty interesting design and it's quite nice that people are always coming up with innovative and interesting concepts.