14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve seen it happen before. There are times when one person comes up with an idea and, as it happens, luck has it that said idea proves to be a truly brilliant one. We just might see it happen once again, as this could also be the case of the concept Nokia phone designed by Rune Larsen.
The phone has an overall really dark look, and an F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter touch to it – it's sort of the high tech device you would see the military use. Larsen’s handset has a large touchscreen, so if this concept ever gets to hit the market, it will be probably be Nokia's second full touchscreen device.
However, what is really innovative about this phone is not the way it looks, as out of the ordinary as it may be, but the technology it incorporates into its touchscreen. As the designer says, one downside of touchscreen technology is tactile feedback, since, without the sensation of pressing a button, all of the user’s visual attention is focused on the gadget.
This can be pretty annoying, especially when you want to dial a number really fast or even type (or, better yet, especially when you type). But getting back to the innovative idea behind the touchscreen, the designer imagined a small pump that would be used to fill a substrate beneath the screen and which would be designed to create in the fingers the tactile sensation of a button being pushed.
This could be considered a great idea, but what we would have probably liked to see is more specs for the device. Being a full touchscreen, users might expect to see it as a handheld that runs either Symbian or Windows Mobile OS, and delivers full broadband Internet access, along with advanced office and multimedia capabilities. A 5 megapixel camera wouldn’t be a bad addition to it either.
Until this concept is not made real, we can’t really say with certainty what the Finnish manufacturer would make of it, so the one thing left for us to do is to look at and duly appreciate the designer's idea, while hoping for the best.
