Nokia patent app suggests N97's form factor isn't complicated enough

Combining huge screens with usable keyboards in a pocketable package is the challenge phone manufacturers are eternally doomed to try to solve, leading to an endless stream of (mostly comical) patent applications for ridiculous form factors that will never see the light of day. That's where we think -- well, we hope -- Nokia's latest app comes into play, combining a portrait-oriented QWERTY keyboard with a wide display that somehow swivels behind the body of the phone when you only need a little bit of screen real estate. Looks cool on paper, but realistically, we think this thing would be the most unwieldy Frankenstein of a handset since the MPx were it ever to be produced. Tilt-slide on the N97 looks fine, guys. Seriously.

[Via Cellpassion]

[carcomptoy Posted Dec 13th 2008 8:59PM]

Are you guys seriously against this?? I think it's the coolest thing!

[EDALBNUG Posted Dec 13th 2008 9:58PM]

I am worried about how sturdy the keypad remains after swiveling the screen out to landscape. Certainly not impossible to have a mechanism underneath that refinforces the hollow space underneath the keypad.

[shogunmaster Posted Dec 13th 2008 10:08PM]

I'm worried that it would be thicker than a phone book in order to accomodate all the latches and hinges inside the thing.

It does kind of remind me of that phone design that was rumoured to be a new Palm device though ('cept with square edges). That or Iron Man's phone...

[carcomptoy Posted Dec 13th 2008 11:54PM]

Iron Man's phone was nothing but a stock Verizon-branded LG VX-9400. That form factor has been in Japan and Korea for quite sometime now--nothing THAT special. Sorry if I seem to be snippy, but people at BGR were making the same comparison too.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 16th 2008 6:56PM]

That No.12 in Fig.7 is a pop-up cover, if that pop-up cover have 2 or 3 in back of the keyboard, I think those can be reinforcements.