Polygon: The cellphone of the future?
June 1, 2006
Design firm Alloy used the 2006 MEX conference (iMobile User Experience) to unveil its latest concept phone, the Polygon. They have attempted to design a handset that where it will be relatively easy to access multimedia content like tv streams, music, photos or web surfing. At first glance, it looks like your standard clamshell design with a touchscreen where the keys are supposed to be.
So when you’re playing music, the touchscreen looks like an iPod. When you’re watching TV, you turn the phone sideways and the touchscreen morphs into channel-switching controls. When you surf the Web, it becomes a QWERTY keyboard. It’s a neat idea - and in every case leaves the top screen completely free for whatever content you’re viewing / accessing.
The developers say that the phone will be feasible in 2-3 years so dont expect to buy one in the next couple of weeks. The design has some interesting features but one gripe seems to be that the phone wont be suitable for handheld gaming, something which the developers acknowledge. “Yes is the short answer,â€? he said. “We had to take a view on whether we felt that this would be a hot gaming machine, or if games would be another incidental application. Looking back on it, it’s probably an omission. What it came down to was we were very concerned about keeping this as a very practical achievable handset.â€?
