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March 12, 2006
au Design Project NEON
It just hit me, the new Nintendo DSlite colors reminded me of something. Ah yes, it was the NEON mobile phone by Naoto Fukasawa for au Design Project. Digging thru my files, I found what I wrote about the NEON but couldn't write much at the time because everything was in Japanese. Well a quick check at the current site and YAY! They have an english site up, and OOOOH the tidbits are GOOD.
Okay, this muthaf*cka is BIG so if you're some RAZR fanboy, this is not the phone for you. HOWEVER, if you are a fan of compact technology that does EVERYTHING, then come right on in. The NEON is for you. I am one of the latter people. Super skinny is nice but I LOVE being able to do everything in one place. Call it convergence technology if you will but the NEON phone takes the place of so many things in your home, its more like a personal assistant - if only it could speak.
First off its design, a slick rectangle with slightly rounded corners. The top half and bottom half are equally thick. When open, the keypad takes up the entire bottom half making the buttons and directional keypad big and easy to press (THANK GOD). The top half is dominated by a brilliant 320 x 240 16 million color TFT screen. The interface is completely redesigned and uses simple small icons and lists to navigate as opposed to the large graphic icons used on most phones today. On the bottom of the phone is a 2 megapixel camera and stereo speaker. Specs wise, it has everything most high end phones today have - bluetooth, 3G, video, digital imaging, etc. But all that mentioned above isn't even the cool stuff.
Lets revisit the phone when closed. It just looks like a block, but no. The whole surface is embedded with an LED interface! Time, call, music player, and visual feedback for sending and receiving messages all appear on the surface like magic. You would never know because it looks so smooth and shiny.
Usually at night, our phones are plugged in and asleep just as much as we are. The NEON takes it to the next level by turning your phone into an alarm clock and stereo. Just plug it into its dock, set your alarm and lull yourself to sleep with the stereophonic sounds pumping from the included speaker cube.
Unfortunately this is another one of those Japan only phones. You could get something similar from Sony Ericsson but this thing looks like a page right out of Apple's playbook. When are we ever gonna see phones like this here?
more pictures after the jump
Posted by tranism at 11:42 PM | Permalink
Comments
*drool*
Posted by: chris glass at March 13, 2006 12:03 AM
that is nice as sh*t. i dont really know much about phones, but i would think as long as the RF waves are the same frequency you could use a phone like this in the US. does anyone know if i (in the US) could use this phone?
Posted by: Broom at March 13, 2006 11:56 AM
^^^
Normally yes but Japanese phones are designed specifically for their cellular networks. They are technically YEARS ahead of anyone else in terms of cellular capability, service, and coverage. The U.S. and Europe simply don't have the network to support phones like this.
Think about, the phone is so tied into Japanese life that they watch real time TV on their phones to keep up to date. And that's live broadcast, not downloaded snippets. They also use their phones as payment since it's tied in with their banking accounts. Protection comes in the form of built in biometric scanners - a simple wave over a machine with your phone and payment is made.
Posted by: electro^plankton at March 13, 2006 12:12 PM
An absolute modernist masterpiece if I were to make a phone it would have turned out similar to this, take notes Nokia, Moto and SE this is how it should be done.
Sod those Nokia monstrosities, K710 whatevers and those hideous RAZRs and ROKRs.
Posted by: James Hicks at March 13, 2006 7:06 PM
Absolutely beautiful. I obviously can't say for sure, but I would assume it is much more durable than say a RAZR. Durability, Funtionality, Aestheticly gorgeous, isn't it obvious why it isn't offered here.
Posted by: Zulu Edison at October 9, 2006 4:09 PM