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 (Suggested by Nitin)
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 (Suggested by Varun)
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.
Do check these handsets - May be "Oddball Mobile Phones - Part III" can be prepared
