Tag Archives: 2019

Here’s why the Moto Razr is an absolute success but other folding phones aren’t

Posted on by

Post today’s launch and amidst multiple hands-on videos, the 2019 Moto Razr could easily be this year’s most desirable phone… which is a pretty remarkable achievement considering the lukewarm response flexible-display phones have been getting on an average. The phone capitalizes on its history of being the coolest phone of the 2000s, along with the fact that it has a flexible folding screen. The phone hits the shelves in January 2020 for a price-tag of $1500 and my guess is it just might be a runaway success. Here are a few things Motorola absolutely nailed, resulting in such a remarkable piece of tech.

1. Phone first, tech later

Here’s probably the biggest reason why the Moto Razr is such a win. Motorola didn’t force its technology onto the smartphone. It saw the technology, spotted an application, and then proceeded forward… unlike Samsung, Huawei, and Royole, who designed their phones specifically FOR the flexible screen. Motorola just got the timing absolutely right, and the fact that they had the Razr brand to revamp. Samsung’s “develop the technology and force it onto a smartphone” attitude is probably exactly why it isn’t as appealing as the Razr, which just already has that swagger.

2. The clamshell format and its perfect size

The clamshell format has historically always worked better than that mini-book format from Nokia’s Communicator series. Besides, a clamshell phone always results in a smaller phone when closed, whereas all of Nokia’s Communicator phones, just like the Samsung Galaxy, remain pretty large even when closed. If you look at the 2019 Razr, it’s conveniently small when closed, and when opened, is just about the same height as the original Razr, albeit with a nice, long portrait display. Moreover, it still FITS IN ONE HAND (learn a lesson, other companies). Motorola’s understanding of sizes, ratios, and formats just gives Razr the upper edge.

3. A longer display is better than a ‘bigger’ display

Given that almost all of our mobile-based content depends on scrolling upwards and downwards, even so much so that content is now being created in portrait mode more than ever (proof: TikTok), we don’t really NEED bigger squarish displays, to be honest. The square display also doesn’t do anyone any favors. You’re still left with pretty large black boxes on the top and bottom of the videos you’re watching, and the only perceivable advantage of the large display is the ability to multi-task, which personally, hasn’t really caught on yet. Besides, a phone with a hinge along the longer edge results in a longer and more visible ‘crease’. Motorola cleverly made a phone that puts its hinge along the phone’s width, resulting in a crease no doubt, but a relatively much smaller crease.

4. No technical snags like the Samsung Galaxy Fold (Plus, they nailed that hinge)

Take a look at how Motorola designed the screen to fold inwards without an air-gap like in the Samsung Galaxy and you’ll realize how Motorola did it right. Admittedly, it’s been just a few hours since the release, but not a single reviewer has complained about dead pixels, bumps, and faults in the Moto Razr, especially given how quickly and carelessly people close that clamshell hinge. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, on the other hand, required being extremely careful, and even despite that, almost every early reviewer ended up destroying that flexible display. Call it great engineering on Motorola’s part, or just shoddy engineering on everyone else’s part, but hot damn, that phone’s had an absolutely track record so far.

5. That sweet retro app

Possibly one of my favorite parts of the 2019 Razr is the retro app, that gives the phone its classic old-timey interface, complete with that edgy Tron-esque keyboard. Motorola recognized the power of nostalgia, and I’m pretty sure people will be bootlegging this app onto their Pixels and iPhones just for the nostalgia-factor! Good job, Motorola!

6. The price tag

Here’s why I think the Moto Razr won’t just be popular, but will also be a commercial success. It has an incredibly low barrier of entry, with a price of $1500, which is considerably lower than the Huawei Mate X which retails for $2600 and the Samsung Galaxy Fold, which retails for $1980. The fact that it’s better, cheaper, and more desirable than its competition in the folding phone market just means that Motorola’s taken the time and energy to get absolutely everything right, from the phone’s design to its tech, engineering and price… and Motorola knows it has a winner on its hands. I mean, even the theme music in the video above has the lyrics “they don’t make ’em like me no more”.

This article’s pretty much a hat-tip to the guys at Motorola for absolutely nailing this beauty, and a love-letter of sorts to the company from a complete tech enthusiast and someone who’s done his fair share to build the hype for the smartphone *wink wink*. Hey Motorola, if you’re feeling generous, and want to reach out to me with a small token of appreciation, feel free to hit me up via email!

The Moto Razr 2019 is the perfect fusion of futurism and nostalgia

Posted on by

motorazr_2019_1

The interweb has been buzzing with a certain piece of news leaked by the Wall Street Journal only last week. Motorola plans to build a 2019-appropriate version of their iconic Razr phone. Details are incredibly scarce, and the only taste of the phone we’ve got is via images from their patent registration with the World Intellectual Property Organisation in December 2018.

The 3D visualization of the 2019 Razr bases itself on these patents. The new Razr will be more squarish (when closed) than its predecessors, but that’s only because it comes with a flexible folding display that runs all the way from the top to the bottom, with what we can only assume is an aspect ratio of 19:8, along with curved edges and even a notch (the notch design has always been a part of the Razr series, if you recall). Flip the phone on its back and you see the secondary display and the single-lens camera on the upper half of the phone, and a fingerprint sensor on the lower half. The presence of two screens means you can A. use the camera as both a front and backwards facing shooter, as well as B. access the phone’s notifications without opening out the flexible display. There’s no word on whether the secondary display will be touch-enabled. There’s also the absence of volume buttons in the patent drawing (and subsequently left out of the visualization), as well as a power button, but given the phone’s flip nature, I doubt we’d need a power button on this beaut.

Through the years, the Razr has always been a symbol of cutting-edge futurism. Unsettlingly thin when it launched, the Moto Razr was an immediate object of desire, with its slim profile, and the fact that it was probably the only phone to come bundled with iTunes long before Apple closed their ecosystem. The 2019 Razr builds on that philosophy, retaining the slim profile, and introducing a new bit of futuristic tech, with the flexible display. A rare combination of cutting-edge (wordplay!) innovation and fond nostalgia, the Razr 2019 could easily be this year’s most awaited phone (and the year’s just begun!)

Designer/Visualization: Sarang Sheth

motorazr_2019_2

motorazr_2019_3

motorazr_2019_4

motorazr_2019_5

motorazr_2019_6

motorazr_2019_7

No buttons, no ports, the all-glass Vivo Apex 2019 is the purest smartphone ever built

Posted on by

vivo_apex_2019_1

A triumph of minimalism, the Vivo Apex 2019 concept phone is, in many ways, what the iPhone should have become. Pure and pristine in every sense, and made completely from glass (something Apple even patented in 2014) with no trims or embellishments, barring the cameras, the Vivo Apex 2019 is quite literally flawless. It ditches the buttons and the ports (completely functional details, if you think about it) and puts aesthetics on a pedestal. Obviously, this raises a few questions… like how do you insert a sim-card, or bootload the phone without physical buttons, or even wire-charge the phone, but that’s not something Vivo is really concerning themselves with immediately, given that the Apex is just a proof-of-concept at the moment, intended at showcasing Vivo’s vision for the future of smartphone aesthetics. Oh yeah, the future has no notch too, so a big thumbs up there.

The front of the Apex 2019 is perhaps just as eye-catching as the back, with a full edge-to-edge screen and a minimal bezel. There’s no notch, but there’s a slight hint at the phone having a chin, which is where I surmise Vivo’s planning on putting their front-facing camera. The phone also comes with a full-screen fingerprint sensor, eliminating the need for an extra blemish/sensor on the phone’s otherwise-pristine body. Flip the phone on its back and it literally has two cameras, a flash, the branding, and a barely visible set of magnetic connector points that I suspect will be for modular attachments like a jack or physical buttons or perhaps a SIM to eSIM converting device. Who knows. Let’s just focus on basking in the beauty of this perfect, unblemished, piece of smartphone purity. Ahhh…

Designer: Vivo

vivo_apex_2019_2

vivo_apex_2019_3

vivo_apex_2019_4

vivo_apex_2019_5

vivo_apex_2019_6

vivo_apex_2019_7

Ten products that showcase the Pantone 2019 Color of the Year in full CMF glory!

Posted on by

pantone_living_coral_products_layout

Named as Pantone color of the year for 2019, Living Coral is an animating and life-affirming coral hue that signifies light-heartedness and positivity. The color is the kind that instantly makes one happy, with its touch of vibrance and warmth, and the minute you add it to a product, it stands out. Companies have, for long, used the coral color to make products look and feel youthful, and to make them add a splash of color to a space. Living Coral’s beauty especially lies in the fact that it goes well in any domain, fashion, interiors, consumer electronics, or even appliances. Heck, I’d wager that a Ferrari with a Living Coral paint job would look absolutely dope too. Almost a month into 2019, we’re here to take a look at ten of our favorite products that have wholeheartedly embraced Coral as a hue, using it wholly, or in part, to create a product that stands out, and looks great while doing so!
__

01. Apple Watch Series 4 Nectarine Sports Loop
The Nectarine Sports Loop (along with the Watch Series 4) came just weeks before Pantone debuted their color of the year, and it’s almost as if Apple either knew, or they had some spectacular CMF Designers who just happened to feel that the color absolutely did justice to the Watch. There’s a silicone version of the Nectarine band too, but we prefer this woven nylon loop that’s breathable yet sweat-resistant. And it’s compatible with all versions of the Apple Watch!

Click Here to Buy Now

pantone_living_coral_products_1

pantone_living_coral_products_2

02. Google Home & Home Mini (Living Coral Edition)
The coral version of Google’s smart speakers were released shortly after Pantone announced the color of 2019. While the Mini comes completely coated in the Living Coral hue (with a rather remarkable contrast between the woven texture on top and the hard plastic at the bottom), the Google Home does a dual-tone, with white on top, and the addition of a detachable coral fabric grille at the bottom. Don’t make me pick favorites. I like them both.

Click Here to Buy Now (Coral Google Home Mini)
Click Here to Buy Now (Coral Base for Google Home)

pantone_living_coral_products_3

pantone_living_coral_products_4

pantone_living_coral_products_5

03. Urbanears Plattan Coral On Ear Headphones
The tragedy of these headphones is that Urbanears only produced the Coral edition as a limited run. I still maintain that the Plattan headphones look absolutely heavenly in their coral color, treading a fine line between sporty and fashionable with a color that isn’t as red as the Beats headphones, but is the perfect hue to look absolutely dapper. Yes, dapper’s the word.

pantone_living_coral_products_6

04. Retroduck Q Wireless Charging Dock
Unlike its previous, wired version, the Retroduck Q comes with two changes. Firstly, the dock works wirelessly, charging your phones simply by placing them on the retro TV-esque stand… and secondly, the Retroduck Q ditches its ancestor’s more orange-heavy color for a delightful coral version, or as they call it, Carmine Red. The Retroduck Q just finished its round of crowdfunding and is still under development at the time of writing this article. We’ll be sure to drop a link when they’re ready to buy online!

pantone_living_coral_products_7

pantone_living_coral_products_8

05. Kvell Pop Clock
Rather strangely titled Pop, the Kvell clock actually comes in a single color, making it quite the opposite of pop… but it makes up for that with the use of such an incredibly rich hue that I’m sure it’ll pop off any wall you mount it on. I’d recommend a white or light teal colored backdrop for this beauty. Even a light blue would work, given that corals are originally found against a backdrop of oceanic blue.

Click Here to Buy Now

pantone_living_coral_products_9

06. Dot&Bo Coral Pantone Clock
While most products embrace a hue, Dot&Bo’s Coral Pantone Clock embraces the entire shade card! With multiple hues arranged around the face of the clock, Dot&Bo’s timepiece is much more subtle than Kvell’s Pop Clock. After all, in-your-face vibrant decor isn’t for all homes.

pantone_living_coral_products_10

07. Vespa Coral Visor 2.0 Helmet
Vespa, the brand, stands on two pillars. Retro-Italian design, and an absolutely delicious color palette. The Visor 2.0 helmet has its share of both. Designed to pair perfectly with the adorable Italian legend-of-a-scooter, the Visor 2.0 Coral helmet will protect your brain and will blow the brains of pedestrians as they catch a glimpse of the Coral-colored helmet blurring past. Pairs well with a coral colored Vespa and the Italian countryside. Both sold separately.

Click Here to Buy Now

pantone_living_coral_products_16

08. Hip Bottle by Karim Rashid
Rashid was using vibrant hues like Coral long before Pantone named it the color of the year. A major part of Karim Rashid’s design legacy is his use of CMF as an absolute weapon. Take the Hip Bottle for instance. Add any other pastel color to the Hip Bottle and chances are it probably won’t stand out. Its form is simple, and the bottle isn’t as edgy as most sports bottles out there… but carefully drop the Coral hue on it and the Hip looks stunning. Also available in 5 other colors that don’t match up to the sheer beauty of the Coral variant.

Click Here to Buy Now

pantone_living_coral_products_11

09. Bird of Paradise (2018) by KitchenAid
I could totally imagine myself walking into a kitchen with a tropical teal wallpaper with pineapple graphics on it, and surrounded by KitchenAid’s coral-colored appliances. Kitchenaid, in fact, began its own Color of the Year series last year, and believe it or not, Coral was their color of the year for 2018. Titled the Bird of Paradise, the entire collection of kitchen appliances sports the beautiful coral hue, right from the range of blenders to the stand mixer that I personally love most, probably because of its distinctive design, and my obsession for meringues (what, I’m human).

Click Here to Visit Store

pantone_living_coral_products_13

pantone_living_coral_products_14

10. Pantone Color of the Year Mug (2019)
I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a product from Pantone’s own catalog. Every year, along with their announcement of the COTY (Color of the Year), Pantone also releases their own merchandise, from notebooks to thumb drives to mugs, that feature the Color of the Year in its Pantone-branded color accuracy. The mugs, however, are a standout because notebooks are too basic and thumb drives are practically obsolete. Besides, look at that mug and tell me it isn’t simply the most eye-catching mug ever.

Click Here to Buy Now

pantone_living_coral_products_15

Three concept designers visualize what the 2019 iPhone will look like

Posted on by

iphone_2019_concepts_10

Leaks have become a very common part of Apple’s launch process. When you’re as big as Apple is, it’s difficult to keep everyone quiet. Somewhere in some part of the world, a factory worker clicks a picture of the iPhone Gorilla Glass being prototyped, or the aluminum frame being machined, and the rumors spread like wildfire. Helping bring some sort of depth to these rumors are concept phone designers, who quickly put together renders that, after a couple of rumors, end up looking exactly like the new phone. Apple’s made peace with this, because not only is it inevitable, but it also helps their end-users get accustomed to the design long before the release, creating a wave of hype that builds up to the phone launch.

On the other hand you’ve also got concept designers who don’t just simply follow trends. They add a bit of their own expectations to these concepts, creating designs that may seem outlandish, but are well received for their imagination and creativity. It’s perhaps because of these designers we’re still anticipating things like transparent smartphones, or smartphones that wrap around your wrist (Lenovo went and even built one!)

In this article, we’ll take a look at a mix of both the approaches. Two realistic ones that base themselves entirely on reliable leaks, and one that turns things up a notch, no pun intended!

Right below is a visualization by Concept Creator, who’s given the iPhone back its 2011-style aluminum side-frame and signature chamfered edge (like the iPhone 4). Also on board the concept 2019 iPhone is a staggering 5 cameras. 3 on the back, arranged in a linear style, and two on the front, with a double punch design that sort of forms a successor to the notch. The centralized camera system allows you to have portrait-mode shots with your front facing camera too, and could even carry FaceID if the technology supported it. Its location isn’t desirable, but it’s much better than the notch, and the side-hole-punch we’re seeing in the upcoming Huawei and Samsung phones. The glass back on the concept would suggest that the new phone is aggressively pushing the gospel of wireless charging, while it’s hard to tell whether the concept sticks to the Lightning connector or opts for the Type-C connection.

iphone_2019_concepts_1

iphone_2019_concepts_2

iphone_2019_concepts_3

iphone_2019_concepts_4

Probably one of the most reliable visualizations come from the twitter handle of Ben Geskin, a young, 20-something designer from Latvia. Geskin’s twitter handle is pretty much a catalog of concept phones based on leaks, from Samsung and Huawei to OnePlus and to Apple. Geskin updates his renders with each subsequent leak, and his final renders almost always match the launches, even down to the color options. His take on the 2019 iPhone is that the phone will pretty much look the same, except for two key differences. One, the back of the phone will have 3 cameras and a flash, and two, Apple will aggressively try to reduce the notch by pushing the speaker module out of it. Looking at the back of the phone, it’s somewhat disconcerting to see how the cameras are laid out asymmetrically (Apple takes perfection almost too seriously, so this is worrisome). The three cameras are arranged in a triangular format, inside a square-shaped camera bump. The flash and the video microphone find themselves struggling for space in this layout and get placed at extremely awkward spots. I doubt Apple would green-light this, but only time will tell. It’s good to see that the notch is made to be significantly narrower now, although once again, not desirable.

iphone_2019_concepts_5

iphone_2019_concepts_6

iphone_2019_concepts_7

And lastly, we have Michael Mojica’s outlandish iPhone that does things we’d expect from Android… modularity. While the world wonders whether the iPhone will have 2, 3, or 5 cameras, Mojica says it can have as many as it wants to. Built with swappable camera modules, Mojica’s 2019 iPhone is customizable to have a primary camera that’s as powerful as you want it. The camera modules magnetically click into their place at the upper-center of the iPhone’s back (an unusual move because every iPhone has had a camera on the top-left), connecting to the smartphone through contact points… much like the kind of experiments Motorola, Essential, and RED have done with modularity in their smartphones. Depending on the price you pay, you can choose anywhere from a 3-lens camera setup to a 6-lens camera setup, allowing you to take stunning photographs that are worthy of the #shotoniphone hashtag!

iphone_2019_concepts_8

iphone_2019_concepts_9

iphone_2019_concepts_11

Cover Photo Credits: OnLeaks x DigitIndia