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Pantech's oddball concept lineup
Pantech is taking the "no form factor left unexplored" approach with its latest batch of concept phones, ranging from the practical to the downright bizarre. Let's run through 'em, shall we? The "Oval" isn't really -- it's more of a teardrop shape, which apparently offers a firm, comfortable grip while maintaining the general candybar theme. The "Simple Stick" is pen-shaped -- reminiscent of the Haier P7 -- with music controls on one side and an LCD display on the other. The "My Music" has a strong Chocolate smell to it, but uses a simple one-line LCD below the keypad to keep the phone's appearance simple when the slide is closed. The "A-Swing" has a game console appearance to it, but the main draw is its DMB support, allowing users to watch programming with the phone on a surface and the display flipped up. We kinda liked "DownSlide," pictured, which offers a side-sliding keypad and a 2.6-inch display that remains partially exposed in the closed position. The "AS-wing" (as opposed to A-Swing, we guess) steals some elements of Samsung's X830 with a spring-loaded swivel and a rather narrow design. In the same vein, the "Swing & Turn" rocks a swivel display but adds DMB and a slightly wider form for comfortable viewing. Next up, the "IP-DMB" rocks, as its name suggests, IPTV -- and a very large screen to go with it. Finally, the "Note" comes wrapped in a leather binder to give it an old-skool notebook look and feel, and supports writing with a stylus to continue the theme. While they're all concepts at the moment, Pantech's taking feedback to determine which (if any) of these they should look into cookin' up as production devices -- so get in that feedback.
