Oddball Mobile Phones - Part II

In this second segment of oddball mobiles I’ve included a couple of suggestions from my dear readers. First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for all the feedback that Part I generated. Secondly, let’s get right down to Part II! And so, here are more oddball mobile designs that might ring a bell – or raise an eyebrow at the very least.

Reliance Watch Phone 

This has got to be one of the most James Bondish gadgets to hit the Indian market. The question though is... did it? I haven’t seen a single one of these in use, nor encountered much hoopla about the device. It seems to have faded into the background. Try walking into a Reliance store and ask for this watch phone, and you'd most likely get nothing but confused looks... and probably a laugh.

Feature-wise this device seems quite loaded. Though there isn’t much information available as to the specs (not even on Reliance’s website), I can deduce that its display was a little larger than 1 inch (no idea about the resolution), with 256K colors. It had a keypad on the strap, an external camera that needed to be plugged in, and a speaker phone. The specs on the site suggest it had a stopwatch, planner, infrared, photo caller ID and polyphonic ring tones as well. Hello, 007!

Nokia 7600

Why Nokia would experiment with a design like this is beyond me. This has to be one of the wackiest handsets I’ve ever seen. I used it a bit when it came out, so I can tell you first-hand that... well, to be honest I’m at a loss for words when it comes to articulating my thoughts.

The 7600 had a display in the center with keys running alongside it. It had a VGA camera on the rear, and offered Infrared, Bluetooth, USB, and GPRS. Perhaps Nokia intended this squarish device to be held ergonomically with both hands. At least, there was no way I could type with one hand. It was feature-rich for its time, but the design was simply baffling. Clearly the folks at Nokia must have been smoking something potent.

Porsche and Sagem Launch New Handset

Drive The Porsche Alongwith Sagem

Another Porsche handset by Sagem has made an appearance and this time the company has decided to go with a more conventional candy bar form factor for the design, but there’s nothing really conventional about the handset on the whole. 

The new Porsche P'9522 handset comes equipped with a plethora ofhigh tech features that include a 2.8 inch mineral glass touch screen. Porsche has again used a single block of aluminum and just like theP'9521, it will also have biometric fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone. Other features will include Wi-Fi connectivity and though it won’t be 3G enabled it will support EDGE and GPRS. The P'9522 will also have microSD memory card support, an integrated GPS chip and a 5MP camera. 

Assembled by hand in Fougeres, France, the P'9522 is expected to be launched at Rs. 39,545 (600 Euros) sometime in the next month, which is relatively lower than what the P'9521 cost at launch. Of course this is not official yet, so stay tuned. 

Considering the price of the previous model and the upgraded features of this one, it looks like the price is short by Rs. 50,000. Let’s hope not.

Nokia Launches Comes With Music Service

In September, Nokia had announced their ‘Comes With Music’ service that was going to also be incorporated into some of their new handsets and be launched first in the UK. At the Nokia Remix event held in London and Singapore, Nokia announced the debut of this service. Customers who buy a Comes With Music device will be able to explore and enjoy a diverse catalog of music of international and local artists with unlimited access to millions of tracks for a year, keeping the music once the year is over. 
 

"Comes With Music sets a precedent for consumer value and convenience that the rest of the digital entertainment industry is already copying," said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president and head of the Nokia entertainment and communities business. "Trying out a music recommendation is spontaneous as customers can download without worrying about the cost of an album or a track - the freedom and simplicity of the service is unparalleled. And Comes With Music gives you unlimited access to the millions of tracks in the Nokia Music Store and the music is all yours to keep - because it's not a revolution unless you get to keep your music."
 
Comes With Music offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalog and customers can keep all the music that they have downloaded at the end of the year to continue enjoying their music collection. Comes With Music will be available across a range of Nokia devices, including the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the Nokia N95 8GB and Nokia 5310 XpressMusic. EMI Music has joined as the latest major label to support Comes With Music.  
 

Comes With Music will also feature a tremendous selection of independent music, courtesy of deals with The Orchard, Beggars Group, IODA, the Ministry of Sound, PIAS and Pinnacle. These companies join Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group in supporting Comes With Music. Nokia has also secured music publishing rights from CELAS on behalf of EMI Music Publishing, GEMA on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, SACEM on behalf of Universal Music Publishing, as well as the MCPS-PRS Alliance.
 
The United Kingdom will be the first market to offer Comes With Music with sales planned to start on October 16, 2008. The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Comes With Music edition is expected to cost Rs. 10,747 (GBP 129.95).