14 DAY TRIAL // One thing is for sure: if you don't like watching concept phones all day, you just might not be human. After all, curiosity is one of the things that make us human in the first place. This makes me think about where would the BenQ-Siemens team be on the human evolution scale: probably somewhere on the top branch because everything they design seems out of this world (or at least the thing to make one wonder where did they come up with it in the first place).
The three concepts in discussion here aren't related to each other in any way, despite their hypothetical communications capabilities, and this fact proves what the human mind can conceive if it is trained enough.
The first one is a wrap-around-your-arm phone that looks pretty creepy actually due to its close resemblance to a snake. It features media player controls on the side and inside lighting when is being worn around the hand.
It looks kind of weird and I really doubt the possibilities of it being mass produced (I know this wasn't intended in the first place so bear with me) because few people would probably want to be seen with snake-like cellphones hugging their arm all day long :). It will most likely make you look like a circus employee and the people on the street might end up asking you to make pictures with them.
The second one is a totally asymmetrical phone that seems to be the love product between a Nokia N-Gage and some kind of Klingon communication device. The device's display can be twisted around the keypad and, in the end, you end up having in your hands a mini screen with a stand formed by the surrounding keys. Kind of neat but also not so practical for most of us.
If you were a Star-Trek fan, this would probably fit perfectly in your collection of high-tech non-usable gadgets resembling with the things you've seen in the movie series on TV. Conclusion? Looks geeky and it would be bought only by geeks if it would, eventually, hit the manufacturing line.
The third is the most practical of all and it is a handset very similar with Asus' Aura I wrote about today. This is a concept model cellphone that features a large touchscreen display with landscape capabilities and a sliding control keypad that can be docked wherever you want.
Nothing else seems to be obvious about this concept but at least it is the only one of the three designs that might get a phone manufacturer to give it a second look and decide it deserves to be a real cellphone.
I have to say that we're probably not missing out on anything if some of them never get to be released on the mobile market but, as every design out there, there are bits and pieces that the phone manufacturers could borrow and make our mobile lives easier and more pleasant. If only they would do that!
A word to all cellphone designers out there: when in doubt... DESIGN!
