Tag Archives: Sliding Phone

An iPhone with a Nokia-style sliding keyboard would make more sense than a folding phone

Posted on by

It’s the year 2005, and Nokia’s E-Series phones have a cult following that’s difficult to ignore. The phones came with a relatively large-ish screen, but what really sealed the deal was the fact that you could slide the screen to reveal a nifty, usable QWERTY keyboard underneath. Before the iPhone became the computer in your pocket, the Nokia E-Series phones were the computers in everyone’s pockets. The E stood for Executive, and it wasn’t uncommon to see businessmen in suits strutting down the road with Nokia phones in their hand and Jabra earpieces in one ear. It was the iPhone and AirPods combo, nearly 15 years prior.

I think the fundamental problem with the smartphone touchscreen isn’t its size, it’s how we use it. Screens have a finite amount of space for infinite amounts of data, which makes designing interfaces really complicated, and using them even more so. In that regard, just empirically, a bigger screen on a smartphone doesn’t make it ‘better’… which is why this concept by Johan Gustafsson feels so refreshing. In a world where smartphones are finding new ways to push more pixels into a smartphone, Gustafsson’s iPhone Q brings a level of sensibility to that computer in your pocket – by simply making it a miniature computer!

The iPhone Q (named after the fact that it comes with a dedicated QWERTY keyboard) presents a bold ‘new’ vision for the iPhone. I use the word ‘new’ in air-quotes because while adding a dedicated tactile keyboard to a phone isn’t new, it’s new for the iPhone, and more importantly, it presents a new format as smartphone companies desperately try to make their phones look less blockish and more gimmicky. In a world of folding phones with creased displays, pathetic battery-lives, and clunky bodies, the iPhone Q feels like that perfect premium, enterprise-grade smartphone to pair with the iPad Pro or the MacBook Pro. The phone comes sans a notch, but makes up for the lack of a front-facing camera with a complete tactile keyboard right underneath the screen. The screen slides upwards in landscape mode, revealing the 42-key keyboard below, which can be used as a much more functional alternative to the on-screen keyboard, allowing you to quickly replay to messages and send out emails in a jiffy. A dual-lens camera on the back reinforces the fact that the iPhone Q is less of a multimedia device, and more of a piece of functional hardware, designed for a niche of executive users.

Sure, the iPhone Q is just a concept, but even conceptually, it feels much more contextual and sensible than a folding iPhone with a larger screen. Quite like the iPhone Pro, designed for professional media-creators, the iPhone Q serves a niche group of users, becoming a perfect alternative to people who still use BlackBerries. Sure, they may be a small group RIGHT NOW, but if the iPhone did sport a dedicated slide-out keyboard, I’m pretty sure a lot of executives and office-goers would promptly make the shift!

Designer: Johan Gustafsson

Xiaomi patents indicate they are working on a smartphone with a sliding display

Posted on by

It seems like flexible displays have finally found their place in the smartphone world. Folding phones haven’t been their best application (because folding screens leave a crease behind, and result in thicker phones), but sliding/rolling displays seem to be an interesting approach that allows phones to have larger screens in smaller, thinner bodies. LG, Oppo, and TCL have all indicated they’re working on smartphones with rollable scroll-inspired displays, and according to a new patent discovered by LetsGoDigital, Xiaomi seems to be working on a rollable display smartphone too.

The conceptual Xiaomi phone uses the sliding mechanism and flexible display to its advantage. The design comes with virtually no bezel on the front, and the display cascades off the base (like a waterfall), transitioning to the back and turning into a secondary display that works with the main camera. Upon command (either through a voice command or a tap on the screen), the front of the phone slides downwards and reveals the front-facing camera setup on the top. It includes the selfie camera, as well as an ambient light sensor, a distance sensor, and a dot projector. The receiver is also hidden behind the slider display.

This dual-screen dual-camera opens the Xiaomi slider concept up to quite a few use-cases. The larger screen on the front can be used for selfies, facial-unlock, and even video conferencing, while the smaller screen on the back can act as a viewfinder for more elaborate group photos, videos, etc. For visualization purposes, the sliding concept contains the quad-camera module from the Mi10 Pro.

Designer/Visualizer: Sarang Sheth in partnership with LetsGoDigital

This concept was first published on LetsGoDigital. Click here to view the original piece.

TCL is working on an expandable phone with a ‘scroll-style’ sliding display

Posted on by

These images that were leaked to CNET show that TCL could have possibly unveiled the most interesting phone of the year in a week. You’re looking at the world’s first phone with a sliding/scrolling flexible display courtesy TCL, which they would debut at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Sadly the trade show was canceled on account of concerns regarding the Coronavirus outbreak in China, but that hasn’t stopped TCL from getting everyone’s eyes on this new breed of smartphone.

Think of TCL’s sliding phones as an interpretation of those scrolling advertisement boards you see at bus-stops or airports. The phone comes with a large display that’s partially hidden from view. Pull the phone’s two halves apart and the screen expands, like you’re unrolling a scroll. The concept, in theory, circumvents the folding smartphone’s biggest problem by eliminating the hinge and that unsightly crease. It does, however, raise a few concerns because the screen expands, but the glass above it doesn’t. The phone comes with the flexible display curved around the sides, in classic ‘waterfall display’ fashion, and a two-part telescopic body with a parting line clearly visible on the back, right beside the triple-lens camera. Just like you’d flip open a folding smartphone, you’d be required to pull the two halves of this phone apart and the screen ‘magically’ expands to go from a traditional smartphone display to a more tablet-esque format… all without worrying about over-engineered hinges, and unsightly creases. How viable this new format is, and whether this makes the phone more vulnerable to damage than folding phones, all that’s still to be determined… but it’s great to see that the smartphone industry isn’t afraid to think out of the box and make bold moves in the name of innovation!

Designer: TCL

How would you change the LG DoublePlay?

Posted on by

Image

It's almost baffling to see a modern Android smartphone with such an archaic design in a world more accustomed to the Galaxy Nexus. Still, LG's late-2011 DoublePlay has a slide-out physical keyboard and that dinky second screen which reminds us of a phone that's years out of date. However, when we reviewed it, we found it to be very useful, even if it lacked a front-facing camera and weighed a metric ton okay, 190 grams. But how about you? Some of you bought this phone, some of you love it, so how has it been? Tell us in the space below.

How would you change the LG DoublePlay? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 May 2012 22:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments