Smartphones Are Boring, But Check Out These Unique Designs

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Phones. Are. Boring. Every new iPhone is the same boring hunk of metal and glass. Same 5 year old curved edges that turn your phone into a fragile piece of soap with plenty of exposed glass edges. Oh, the screen’s larger? It’s faster? Oh, the camera is better? You added a second camera, ooh, interesting!

Not.

I’m so bored of smartphones. They’re as boring as MacBooks. Every year, Apple updates the MacBook, but have they made it Apple Pencil capable? Despite making over half of the bottom of the wrist rest a touchpad (including the parts you put your wrist on), no. No touch screen. No swinging screen. No articulating display. No weird formations. The TouchBar? It’s so bad that shrinking it and giving people a physical escape button was seen as an improvement. The most exciting part about the new MacBook Pro lineup is that the keyboard doesn’t suck anymore.

Tech is getting so damn boring I could scream.

It’s 2020. Instead of smartglasses, we have giant, impossible to hold cellphones. Instead of usable AI we have Siri that I have to shout, “SET A TIMER FOR FOUR MINUTES” at three times, and by the time it works, I have to clear the timer and set it for three minutes. Instead of creative portables, we have clunky 2-in-1 PC tablet abominations and boring MacBooks repeating the same core design since the 1990’s.

We started to get some dual screen smartphones. Oh, is it small and compact and then fold out? No, it’s a phablet that folds out into a tablet. So it goes from big and bulky to bigger and bulkier? Yes.

Give me some variety! Some innovation! I grew up in the time when cellphones could look like a stick of gum, a candy bar, a “Razr” thin device, a square, or even a river stone (the Palm Pre was too pure for this awful world). Our Sidekicks flipped out with a flick of your thumb. Everyone’s phone was different!

For the love of god. Mix things up!

Oh, hey, LG, what’s that?

The LG Wing

This phone design is a little awkward. Hey, why not handle your multi-thousand dollar device by the thinnest part of it? You could put the heavy part up top! Yeah, great job there, LG, way to make bank selling replacement screens.

But flip it the other way? Now we’re talking. Landscape keyboard, a small screen to have your messages, the rest of the landscape portion for a continuation of the screen, controls, or just the actual app you’re in? Clever!

I may not like the design of “The Wing,” but by the old cellphone gods and new (Nokia and Apple, respectively), am I happy to see something incredibly different. This is the T-Mobile Sidekick version of a smartphone. I’m excited about it, even though I’d never buy it.

Good Examples of Innovation

Motorla Razr

“Ah-ha,” you exclaim, “The Razr isn’t new!” You know what? Fair. But I’ll counter with this: tablets weren’t new either. The smartphone? Not new. Even when the iPhone first came out, the touchscreen phone wasn’t a new idea. But taking an old idea and making it new? That still has value. That’s why I consider it a unique phone.

What’s good about it? This phone takes a complaint about modern smartphones: that they don’t fit in pockets, and brings an old solution into play. Make them flip open. Simple, right? Wrong. It required so much engineering to make the flexible display work. It’s clearly a first generation product, and it’s not for everyone, but it shows real progress towards a design that’ll make smartphones much better.

Samsung Galaxy Z-Flip

Samsung may have been the first to U.S. markets with a foldable phone, but that turned from an awkward to hold device into another awkward to hold device. It had essentially three displays, and many cameras because, unlike another phone on this list, they didn’t think to reuse the primary camera.

But the Z-Flip? Well, it’s also not innovative. It’s basically a Motorola Razr, but without the cool retro-inspired design. However, I’d argue it’s the better phone. A more reliable hinge mechanism is the true innovation here. That, in combination with software that makes use of the clam shell shape, and you have a legitimately cool phone.

We’re still not quite at the point when a folding phone actually improves portability though. It’s a step in the right direction, no doubt about that, but it’s now just over twice as thick as a standard smartphone, thanks to the awkward wedge hinge.

Palm Phone

I’d love to get my hand on one of these. Just “hand,” because it fits in your palm. When it was first revealed, it was a “companion device.” The idea was, this is the smartphone you pack in your bag or pocket when going on a date, hanging out with friends, or exercising. It would help you live in the moment. It was a small phone that was even smaller than the original iPhone. A truly palm-sized device.

However, it’s plagued with problems. First, it wasn’t unlocked. Then it didn’t sell well because Verizon forced it to be a companion device, instead of letting people use it as a standalone device. It might be too small, typing on it is difficult. The battery life is terrible (I feel like e-ink for the display would have been better). Finally, the cost. It’s $350! You can get some refurbished for between $75 and $110 off of eBay or Amazon, if you trust it. But for $350? Just buy an iPhone SE! That high price meant few adopters, which is why Palm still has it running Android 8, despite the fact that Android 11 is on the way. Heavily skinned Android phones like this are hard to update, which was another shortsighted decision on Palm’s part.

Still, I love that Palm went out there and made a phone that can actually fit in your pocket. They might have gone a bit overboard, the keyboard is reportedly very difficult to use without swipe typing, but other than that, it’s a fantastic idea. We don’t need all of our smartphones to be 6 inches or larger! However, we do need them to work.

Huawei Mate X

This is still an awkward device. “What if you want a tablet wherever you are?” Then I’ll bring a sling bag and throw my tablet in it! Honestly, I don’t need a tablet so often that I want one in my pocket. What I want is a phone that fits in my pocket, but still has usable screen real estate.

Still, credit where it’s due. The Mate X uses the back camera as the front facing camera, with a display that wraps around the device. This means you can have just one amazing camera on your phone (although it, like most modern smartphones, has a camera array). It also means it can fold flatter, because it doesn’t need to avoid pinching the display, it wraps around the outside of the hinge to avoid creasing. However, it’s less protected, and, since that display has to be made of flexible plastic, you’re looking at scratches. Still, this is the best “tablet hiding in a smartphone design” yet, and it looks amazing.

LG’s Dual Screen for LG G8X

Now we’re talking something unique! Imagine a smartphone case that adds a second display! Sure, it only fixes the “phone is actually a tablet” “problem,” but what if it was smaller? What if your iPhone was a small square that you could plop into a case to make it a full sized device? You could take the small portion out for runs, or out with friends, and watch movies or play games with it docked.

Apple has done well with secondary screens over WiFi. AirPlay and Sidecar show Apple has what it takes for lag-free wireless display sharing. But we could still use something like a contact connector, like Apple’s original iPad smart connector, to display anything on a larger screen and register touch inputs. Let’s take a page out of the book of advertising billboards with their segmented yet seamless displays and make part of our phones “pop” out!

What Else?

Do you know what phone I always wanted but never got because it came out during an off year for my contract and smartphones came out after that? The Samsung Juke. Oh, man, what a magnificent thing. The size of a few sticks of gum. Flick it out like a folding knife and you have a cellphone. I still regret getting some lousy Samsung “Feature Phone” instead. Give me a larger Juke, but in a wider shape and with edge to edge screens!

Bring back sliding phones, but with two screens that overlap. Or maybe it can swing up and join the main display with an arm to form one large seamless display. Let’s see more flexible display phones! What about something that rolls up, like a newspaper or a scroll? I want to unfurl my scroll on the subway and dole out decrees to unsuspecting commuters!

Better yet! No display at all. Seriously, none. Give me a device that has no display, but uses AR glasses that it communicates through WiFi direct or Bluetooth. Make it the size of some gum, like the Juke, and have the AR glasses capable of identifying it, and let me use it as an invisible smartphone only I can see.

It’s possible, even just with current technology, so why not innovate in these fields? A company like Apple could release a package like that in just a few years if they got started today. Imagine your phone being the size of a Bic lighter, and your glasses capable of giving you directions, notifications, and more.

Why not?

Why not put the smartphone in a belt with all day battery life and have it communicate wirelessly with my watch, headphones, and smart glasses?

Why not?

Let’s get weird (with our electronics).

Innovate Again

I used to get so frustrated with Samsung, LG, and other Android manufacturers for outright copying the iPhone. There were two reasons for this. First, I value the work of designers and engineers, who work hard only to have their unique ideas stolen. I hate to see that. Secondly, it hurts innovation. It leads to what we see now, every smartphone looking the same. And, sure, there are a few unique outliers. The Razr making a comeback, Samsung’s Z-Flip, and The Wing. But for the most part? Glass. Metal. Screen. A weird number of cameras. That’s it. They finally started looking a little different, but they settled on “Curved screen edges, curved corners, and all glass,” the worst design they could have settled on!

Designs got boring, just as I thought they would.

Only now, I can’t blame just the Android manufacturers. 13 years of the iPhone and the most unique designs were the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5. The rest? The iPhone 11 Pro has more in common, design-wise, with the original iPhone than the 3GS to the 4! How can I blame Android manufacturers for copying Apple? Apple’s been copying Apple for over a decade, and it’s put everyone to sleep.