Fujitsu's Latest Mobile Phone Splits In Two

angry tapir writes with news of Fujitsu's new phone which is taking the sliding phone keyboard a step further by allowing it to detach completely. "The F-04B was announced as part of NTT DoCoMo's new line-up and is scheduled to hit Japanese shelves in March or April next year. At first glance it looks like a conventional slider cell phone: grab onto the bottom of the phone and a numeric keypad slides out. But decouple a catch and the entire back half of the phone can be pulled off."

Video demo

[Xerfas]

Here is a demo of the phone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15kGMW0N98&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com]

Re:Projector?

[PitaBred]

People already use their phones to watch movies and show pictures to people and such. A projector would let you do it for a wider audience. Life isn't just about business, you know ;)

One handy thing I see...

[TheModelEskimo]

In the video, the girl mentions that for example, you can detach the screen while on a call, and then use the screen part to look through your address book or do other stuff. That's one case where I can see it being handy. Overall it feels like a gimmick, but maybe there's someone out there who is just dying to have this functionality. Japan's technology markets have always gone for this notion of technology fitting your purposes, whereas in the U.S., for example, you have limited choices to which you must tailor your use.

Re:Awesome!

[berashith]

and only one of them rings when I call it.

Re:Hello 1980...

[dgatwood]

Well, that's partly because a cell phone is the wrong implementation for this sort of thing. I thought about doing something similar a few years ago, but for a laptop. You have a keyboard that hooks into the bottom of the screen, forming a screen-protecting lid to carry it around. When you unlatch it, the hook parts flip upside down and lock into place, forming a keyboard stand. Another stand flips out of the back of the screen to hold it up. This way, you have the simplest, least breakable hinges with no wires running through them. That would eliminate what is probably the second most common cause of laptop failures behind hard drive crashes.

Re:Projector?

[TheRaven64]

Doesn't this seem a bit much for a phone?

A modern phone has 128MB or 256MB of RAM, up to around 32GB of flash, a 600MHz 32-bit CPU, an OpenGL 2 ES GPU, an video processing unit that can encode (and decode) 720p H.264 in real time, a network connection that can deliver 3-7Mb/s anywhere or 54Mb/s on a WLAN and bluetooth for local input. It has better specs than the workstation I was using just a few years ago and similar specs to the desktops that a lot of non-geeks that I know are still using.

Re:Video demo

[Aldhibah]

I can't disagree with the assertion that it is a usability nightmare more. I have a small, portable, foldaway keyboard for use with my Ipaq 2215. The keyboard has tray to hold the PDA and it is not difficult to read when sitting on a desk. I used the device for taking notes all the way through law school and it was far more portable and convenient to have on your desk at the same time as a textbook as compared to a laptop.