Man Creates Folding iPhone from an iPhone X and Motorola Razr

Because dream it and you can achieve it, Chinese YouTuber 科技美学 has created the iPhone V, a folding iPhone he built using parts from both an iPhone X and Motorola Razr. That’s cool; I’ve also bent an iPhone before. Granted, it wasn’t on purpose, and it cost me $900 to replace, but this time I got the insurance.

The video walks through the process in which the phone was Frankenstein’d together, which looks slightly above my expertise level. And by slightly, I mean vastly. I can barely put a protective case on my phone without breaking something.

There are rumors Apple is going to release its own folding version of the iPhone. Are they true? No clue; I don’t participate in gossip. But if other phone companies are making flip phones and they’re selling, I suspect Apple will as well, then claim they invented them in the first place. When are pagers going to make a comeback?

[via MacRumors]

The 2022 Moto Razr doesn’t look that special or cutting-edge anymore…

The Razr seems to have lost its ‘edge’.

In what couldn’t have been a more shitty time to announce the new Moto Razr, the company decided to do it in the same 24-hour period that Samsung announced their new Galaxy Z Flip4 phone. The worst part? The Moto Razr 2022 sort of looks exactly the same as the Galaxy ZFlip 4, with the vertical folding design, and what really seems like a ‘blunter design’, going entirely against the phone’s one defining character – its razor-sharp design. To add insult to injury, the phone only seems to be available to its Chinese audience, so as much as I’d like to see one on the shelves and get a better look at it, that doesn’t seem to be on the cards.

Designer: Motorola

Although the company’s strategy to only focus on the Chinese market seems odd, it makes sense given two reasons – A. The initial folding Moto Razr had a rocky start with various technical and hardware difficulties, and B. China has consistently recorded the highest number of foldable sales ever since the Royole Flexpai – so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a business decision.

However, just an analysis on the phone itself: Objectively, the Razr 2022 is a pretty great phone. It looks a lot more streamlined and has a larger outer screen and two primary cameras. It also ditches that weird thick chin that the previous phone had, which I appreciate because it allows the folding display to look fuller, but it seems like that chin’s disappearance now makes the phone look thicker in comparison (even though it’s 0.3mm thinner than its 2020 predecessor). Besides, the top of the Razr always had a sharp edge that sat flush against the chin when closed. Without the chin, the top of the phone loses that sharp edge, making it look ‘blunt’. I’m a little confused about how I feel because not only is the Razr phone no longer razor-sharp looking, but it also means the phone looks almost exactly like the Z Flip 4, which also has a larger outer screen, two primary cameras, and a top-to-bottom folding display with a hole-punch camera. In an ideal world where the Z Flip4 didn’t exist, the Razr would look like a pretty remarkable handset, but all factors considered (along with the unshakeable feeling that the new Razr feels less ‘razor-like’), the 2022 Moto Razr just doesn’t seem ‘cutting edge’.

To just get the specifics out of the way, the new 2022 Razr now comes with a 6.7-inch foldable P-OLED FHD+ panel with a 144Hz refresh rate, along with a 2.7-inch P-OLED cover display that works for viewing notifications, accessing unique widgets, and using ad the viewfinder for the two primary cameras. The dual cameras feature a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 50-megapixel OIS-enabled shooter. There’s a third hole punch camera on the inside, which is equipped with a 32-megapixel sensor.

Don’t get me wrong – the Razr 2022 isn’t a bad phone. It’s just not as exciting anymore in visual and overall appeal, also in part because the rest of the world outside China won’t get their hands on it. The phone packs a 3,500mAh battery with support for a 33W fast charger (although I’m not sure if the charger comes with the box). Other features include dual SIM support (which is a big deal in the Asian market), 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and obviously, a USB-C charging port.

The phone is all set to launch on Monday, the 15th, with a price tag of 5999 Yuan (about $890) for a model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 7299 ($1,082) for the higher specced model featuring 12GB RAM and 512GB of memory.

The post The 2022 Moto Razr doesn’t look that special or cutting-edge anymore… first appeared on Yanko Design.

Motorola wrap-around display phone concept is pretty but also pretty impractical

A phone that’s almost 100% screen has some benefits, but the ergonomic and practical concerns could outweigh those.

Most of the time we spend on our smartphones is, of course, spent on the screen. It is, after all, the primary point of interaction and feedback on modern mobile devices. Despite its importance, the screen actually covers less than half of a phone’s surface, which some might consider being a waste of space. Unsurprisingly, phone makers have been trying to come up with ways to take advantage of all the places where you can put a display on the phone, and Motorola’s patent reveals how that beautiful but unusual design can actually become useful.

Designer: Parvez Khan (Technizo Concept) for LetsGoDigital

Phones with displays that wrap around the body and leave almost nothing uncovered are right up there with foldable phones, transparent displays, and holograms that spark people’s imaginations. Given how small phones are compared to laptops or even tablets, it’s understandable that manufacturers and consumers will want to take advantage of every piece of real estate available on the pocketable device. Motorola is hardly the first to try, but it is one of the few to go the extra mile and explain why you might want to have an all-display phone.

Flexibility will be the name of the game for a phone where there is practically no front or back. No matter how you pull it out from your pocket or your back, that side facing you will always be the front, and the software will adjust the elements on the screen to match. You might not even have to fully pull out the phone, as long as you can see a small part of the screen. Again, the software could adjust the user interface elements, so you can immediately see who’s calling and swipe to reject or accept the call, even if only the “bottom” part of the phone is visible from your pocket.

Such a phone with a wrap-around display will have to do more work than most phones to pull this off. For one, it will need to use a variety of sensors to determine which direction the phone is facing in a pocket. The software running on the phone needs to be especially dynamic, as it needs to shift UI elements around to match the position and orientation of the phone. There are no physical volume controls, for example, and the phone will have to know on which side to place those depending on how a person is holding it.

Those might be easier to pull off than resolving some usability and ergonomic concerns that an all-screen phone might introduce. Phones whose screens curve off to the sides are sometimes criticized for accidental taps from palms for fingers. An all-screen phone might not have room for cameras either, and the current state of under-display cameras still leaves a lot to be desired. And then there’s the problem that dropping the phone on any side can actually damage the screen, knocking scores off its repairability and sustainability.

The post Motorola wrap-around display phone concept is pretty but also pretty impractical first appeared on Yanko Design.

Xiaomi tries building what Google and Motorola couldn’t – the modular smartphone

The modular smartphone still remains an elusive pipe dream, nearly a decade after the Phonebloks surfaced on the internet. Google tried it, Motorola managed to execute a strange version of it with the Moto Mods, and every company that considered it eventually abandoned it because it was a logistical nightmare with very little net positive benefit. It’s safe to say Xiaomi isn’t ‘every company’. The Chinese giant’s company’s name loosely translates to ‘little grain’, and it talks about a philosophy of building a lot from a little. This means they’re not averse to taking risks, and they’ve definitely surprised before, with their phones like the Mi MIX 2 that was designed by Philippe Starck, the Mi TV LUX, a transparent television, and even their latest bit of innovation in the Mi MIX Fold, with its liquid camera lens. According to LetsGoDigital, it seems like the company is also trying its hand out at designing the modular smartphone by splitting the device into four distinct parts – the screen, the camera, the battery+pcb, and the speakers.

LetsGoDigital uncovered the patent on the 26th of April, and partnered with Jermaine Smit (aka Concept Creator) to bring the patent drawings to life. The phone’s components attach to one another using sliding dovetail joinery, with contact points that allow for communication between modules. Finally, a primary screen snaps on the front, hiding the crease-lines and providing a large, bezel-less display. The three modules play a rather interesting role when combined together. The upper module houses the camera, but also contains the phone’s motherboard. The central module houses the battery, while the third contains the speaker along with the phone’s charging port. Conceptually, the modules would be interchangeable, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you had to switch the phone off prior to swapping parts.

Jermaine Smit’s camera modules give this conceptual Xiaomi smartphone a variety of features, including camera modules with different capabilities. The different modules have anywhere from a 3-4 lens setup, with one of the higher-end ones even coming with its own backward-facing display that’s emblematic of the Mi 11 Ultra that released earlier this year. Unlike the Ultra, which had a tiny display, this concept’s display is a respectable 2-inches diagonally. I’d assume it would be big enough to use as a viewfinder for selfies (given that the phone doesn’t have a front-facing camera) and even for notifications.

Although this concept, and Xiaomi’s patent, unlocks some pretty interesting possibilities, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Not many of these patents really make it to a public reveal or to a retail outlet, but instead, aim at protecting a company’s intellectual property and research. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Xiaomi just announced it as a one-off concept to show that their tech isn’t just a dream, it works in reality too. Until then, all we have are these (pretty intriguing) renders!

Designer: Jermaine Smit for LetsGoDigital

Image Credits: LetsGoDigital

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