By current technologi this is an impossible phone, but I couldn't let that stop me.

In trafic on the way home from work on friday I invisioned a phone about the size of a creditcard, completely seetrough(ok not completely, but you get the point) and still usable.
The top of the questionmark shaped string/tube is the menu button and directional keys(how it works? I don't know, but it does ).

I could put in more pictures, but I think this one tells the whole storry.

Edit: Added Image whit colour versions












Rune Larsen

Hi your a funny guy how about manufacturability ? A phone without electronics, without battery and and.

magik6 please read the first line of my post.

hey rabbit,

You're right.. with today's tech its unlikely this could be produced but i cant see it being far off. With the miniaturisation of absolutely everything and emerging technologies like lithium polymer batteries and OLED screens something like this could be feasible.

Good to think ahead I guess... at least you havnt tried to tell people it would definitely work.

oli

looks cool - but i wouldn't buy it (if it existed). I'm a total phop and it snap it or scratch it or shatter it or something or worse - leave it behind, my phone might be a brick - but it wont break and i cant loose it haha. Good effort though.

Just out of interest, what would you say the buttons are made of?

i think your design is so creative, but i think your phone have some technical problem~~~

I agree with woli,
I don't see this concept too far from reality...

*in 98 I did a project with Nokia and they went crazy with technical restrictions that 2 years later became ridiculous.

congratulations.

I like it. A design like this can be used to build possibilities. I think if one of the rods is thicker, it can be the battery portion. Japanese engineers are probably already working on it, Chinese ready to copy it. MIT, build it!

Im kind of suprised by the positive response, I thought I had gone to far this time.

I would like the buttons to be made of aluminium or some kind of metal.
The battery part I think would be the easiest to solve, a month ago or so I read about a thin plasticsheet(I even think it was clear plastic) that could work as a battery.

and for the record I did design a "working" version of this phone aswell(just incase you would kill me for making an unrealistic phone ), Im not totaly happy whit the render, the glass/plastic front is not the way I wanted it to look and there is no text in the display

I'm not agree with you Bloodrabbit. I think you don't go far enough! Such a cool idea: thin and transparent, but if you look from 1 meter away your cellphone still look like a classic bar type cell phone.
Think what materials can give to fonctionality? ...the plastic could be soft and the cellphone could be rolled, or because it's so thin it could be stick on your clothes...there is a lot of possibilities.
think deeper design will be greater ( can we say this in english?)

You could just about make something like this today if it were a calculator instead of a phone. You'd have to find somewhere to hide a little watch battery and a microprocessor, but that shouldn't be too hard. You'd just have a little non-transparent part embedded in it somewhere. Also, I would take that "Crystal" logo off, something like this doesn't need overt branding.

Bendable phones has been done before, and I like the feel of glass and metal, it gives a quality feel and what your talking about is a whole different concept anyway.

Making a seetrugh battery can't be that hard( ). Chips and other needed electronics might/will be a bit harder.
I wanted the "crystal" logo there to balance the design since the numbers are on one side of their "pipes" and that would make the design lean to the left side.



Rune Larsen

I really don't see that crystal/glass phone being all that un-manufacturable actually... it really isn't as science-fiction that you might think it is. I love the idea, and there are already calculators and clocks that are seemingly nothing but a pane of glass with some teeny-tiny electronics embedded in them that are almost invisible.

If this was purposefully made as a single-use device - i.e. no silly camara and just a basic phone so the minimum amount of electronics - I think it could be made. Ya might have to have a small area that hid all the chips, or better yet, have the chips themselves be fully visible. It would be like those fancy watches in which you see all the gears working inside. The components would be part of the device's charm.

definetly the way to go with it...OLED/PLED phone would have much more milage.

if you feel the "crystal" logo is required to "balence" the design...then consider "thinning" it out...your designing an elegant product...dont bulk it out with ugly type.

also why would you have to hide or find a transparent battery...why not look at making a feature of the internal workings of the "crystal phone"...

great idea though...

I love these minamilist designs for phones. If a phone can't do all the stuff well that it has on it then I don't use any of the extras.

There is an article that I just found on Gizmag that might allow for this phone to exist. It's a clear flexible film battery. There isn't a whole lot of detail available but it looks like something to keep an eye on with devices like this one in mind. Hopefully this will make it into a mass production environment.

http://gizmag.com/go/7018/

Cheers
Daniel