New Pantech concept phones for 2010

Concept phones are great. They’re not intended to be full production models, but rather give a sense of what can be achieved when designers are freed from the constraints that commercial mobile phones must operate in. You know, things like style, usability, cost, and, perhaps most important of all, the laws of physics!

Korean manufacturer Pantech is particularly fond of its concept phones, dishing out several new designs each year. Although none come to fruition, it’s interesting to see the designs nonetheless, and it at least points to teh direction that mobile phones may take in the years to come.

The concept phones shown here have all been designed from students of various Korean Universities, in response to a challenge by Pantech to design a mobile phone for 2010. The one above is called the Wavy Stream, and looks the least conventional of the set.

Read on to see the other four concept phones designed for Pantech.

The next phone in the list is called the the Waterfall Fish. It seems the designs of the phones weren’t the only things the students were given free reign over – the names they gave the phones seem to have a concept feel to them as well!

Next in the list comes the Simplice Section. Looking more like an old retro calculator than a mobile phone, it at least resembles today’s mobile phones more than some of the other concept phones shown here.

The fourth concept phone is the Cell Dot. This is the most conventional of the lot, and of them all, would be the most likely to make it to production if it wasn’t for the single button on its front. Given the current trend towards buttonless phones that rely solely on touchscreens pioneered by the iPhone, no phone worth its salt in 2010 will have something as archaic as buttons on it!

The final concept phone is called the Lily Tower, and obviously takes its inspiration from, well, a tower of lillies! Personally, I can’t see this one taking off, as it looks too much like a fancy fixed line wireless phone, and its curved edges wouldn’t work well in a pocket.

Akihabara News conducted a short poll asking which of these phones its readers preferred. Of them all, the Simplice Section was favourite, closely followed by the Cell Dot, both of which, revealingly, look more like today’s phones than the other concepts on display. Seems that no matter what designers might think future mobile phones might look like, we users prefer our tried and trusted designs that we’re already familiar with. Good job we’re not paid to design new phones, then, else we’d still be living with the bricks that were around in the 80s!

[Source: Akihabara News]