Fujitsu's Latest Mobile Phone Splits In Two 140
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."
iPhone and a hacksaw (Score:1, Funny)
I can do the same thing with my iPhone and a hacksaw... big deal
Video demo (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thanks for the video, that helped:
1. They don't seem to hold it side by side with anything I am familiar with but it looks really really thick in the video.
2. Why can't phones, like the iPhone, work with a bluetooth keyboard out of the box?
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2. I guess it's because then Apple would have to make a keyboard themselves which was locked somehow so that it was the only BT KB that the iPhone could use. I mean otherwise people could use the BT for something more useful then what we can do today with it and that would be bad in apples eyes.
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Ya, it really sucks that I have to buy special Apple brand BT headsets to work with their products.
Oh, wait. It doesn't because I don't have to.
Really, this sort of drivel gets insightful? Go go /. Apple Hate!
I'm just hoping Android makes it big so I can watch /. turn on their once favorite underdog.
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You mean like this sort of thing [engadget.com]? Yes, I realize that isn't referring to a BT headset, but it is a case of Apple locking down peripherals.
GP might have been a bit on the trollish side, but you're not exactly helping your own cause by responding in kind.
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Android just wants to be free.
Oh, and to do everyone's mothers.
So Android just wants to be free and do everyone's mother.
Oh, and dominate the world.
But that's absolutely it. The freedom, the thing with the mothers, and world domination.
If we can work up a deal with Nvidia there should be 3-D images of it all available on your phone soon.**
**Image quality will be excellent. Quality of mothers may vary. We assume no responsibility for e
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Lets say that they do open it up and suddenly people with keyboard xyz says but this doesn't work with my iPhone, Apple is crap buhu!
That would only be bad press.
I wrote nothing about BT headsets.
Android looks good, so does Maemo, well on papers because I
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If apple released a completely botched BT KB stack, and 90% of the keyboards didn't work with it, the only people blaming apple would be the people who don't even HAVE one. The apple users would just say that 90% of BT KB suck!
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2. Why can't phones, like the iPhone, work with a bluetooth keyboard out of the box?
That would a usability nightmare. The screen's too small for you see if you put it down and type without holding it. A full keyboard is too large for you to hold it and a screen at the same time. A roll-up membrane keyboard would have to hold a bluetooth radio and a power source, making it impractical as well.
I understand that people don't like the touch-screen keyboard (believe me, I hate it too) but a BT keyboard would
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There are a lot of ways that a good device could be built. I can think of two plausible ways, and I don't even own a cell phone.
1. There are a number of keyboards designed for efficient one-handed use. With a bluetooth-capable one-handed keyboard you could set the keyboard on your lap and hold the screen up near your face with your other hand.
2. Some people prefer the tiny thumb keyboards most smartphones have to the iPhone's on-sceen 'board. A device for someone like that would basically be a bluetooth-
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Sometimes the goal isn't trying to use an iPhone like a desktop computer.
For example, part of my job in the next year will be to get an inventory system that makes heavy use of barcodes to work with an iPhone. If I could get a bluetooth barcode scanner to act as a keyboard wedge and go through standard bluetooth keyboard functionality, it would save me the trouble of having the learn the hardware access API.
Hello 1980... (Score:2)
I thought the idea sounded interesting, but that thing is huge! It reminds me of a cell-phone from the 70's or early 80's...
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Re:Hello 1980... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I was thinking that if Apple came out with a tablet that's the approach they would take, a removable keyboard so the device could be lighter to carry around.
I just hate devices of this (PSP like) size, they are inconvenient enough to carry that you might as well have a laptop sized device with a far bigger screen. There's no way that is pocketable.
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Kind of, but that still has a nontrivial hinge design.
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You mean something like this piece of double-sweet goodness [wordpress.com]?
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Well, that's partly because a cell phone is the wrong implementation for this sort of thing.
Fluke has new multimeter that does this .
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I'm still wondering what functionality it brings. Why do you want that much bulk? What does it give you the ability to do other the detach keyboard?
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Also, it appeared to me that you _have_ to detach the back to expose the camera's lens. That's not exactly convenient.
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It looked to me like if you slid the keypad down, it would open up a window for the camera to see through. Take a look at the back half when she has it fully open.
So how do you type? (Score:1)
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Great (Score:2, Funny)
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Projector? (Score:1)
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Re:Projector? (Score:4, Funny)
Quit gabbin' and get back to work!
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Re:Projector? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Eh, to be fair 600MHz is pretty low. Granted, offloading any and all DSP helps make things feel a lot faster, but 600MHz was new over 10 years ago. That's like a slow P3. Now, I know a bunch of people still using P4s (1.5-2GHz) from 02-03ish, and those still work fine.
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Mobile TV supposedly took off in Japan. And picoprojector (or whatever devices based on TI DLP tech are called these days) might be quite good for that...
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Your comment reminds me of the quote "640kb should be enough for everyone"
Just what I need (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's what I was thinking. Sounds complicated! Leave it to the Japanese...
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Transformers: Don't use remaining eye!
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I was thinking another Lith. battery to go bad/explode.
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Another part to get lost. Cool.
So you're using an iMac, right?
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I was going to say something snarky, but your chosen nickname mixed with this topic is... funny. Heh.
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Gimmicky at best... (Score:1)
Re:Gimmicky at best... (Score:4, Funny)
I overheard a conversation on Monday of this week. Some guy (who I would concider rather intelligent) was talking about cell phone waves. He was saying that (wet) grass would reflect cell phone transmissions. He then made the leap that if you were to make a call from a grassy field, you were essentially being bombarded by cell phone waves because "each blade of grass is like a tiny antenna". The amount of misinformation about cell phones is extremely misleading. It makes me mad...
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Some guy (who I would concider rather intelligent) was talking about cell phone waves. He was saying that (wet) grass would reflect cell phone transmissions.
He is correct. What else a conductive surface can do to an incoming wave?
if you were to make a call from a grassy field, you were essentially being bombarded by cell phone waves because "each blade of grass is like a tiny antenna"
Generally no, though a case can be made to show this as true. Why true? Because a 1/4 wavelength vertical, combined wi
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Interesting idea, but how far are they taking it? (Score:2)
Sounds like the best of both worlds so far, being able to operate with just the phone half, or even use the keyboard half like a bluetooth headset.
But can both halves be used at once for a home-made three-way? Does keeping the entire package together yield better battery life? How long till we've got video calls where we're talking on the keyboard and watching video on the main phone? What about texting while talking on the phone? Inquiring teenagers want to know!
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It can do it! (Score:3, Funny)
... all while driving!
Re:Interesting idea, but how far are they taking i (Score:2)
Sounds like the best of both worlds so far, being able to operate with just the phone half, or even use the keyboard half like a bluetooth headset.
Weird. I would have thought that a keyboard doesn't give very good audio output when using it like a bluetooth headset. Also, it wouldn't fit very well in most people's ears.
Goody. (Score:5, Insightful)
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This was no accident.
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It was MURDER!
Saucer section (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet, it's just like the Enterprise. This will come in handy in case of a warp core breach.
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True Trek geeks are waiting for the "Tricorder" chemical sniffer phone....
http://tekobot.com/nasa-ames-scientist-working-for-homeland-security-turns-your-iphone-into-a-tricorder/ [tekobot.com]
Voltron (Score:3, Funny)
Whatever. Call me back when it can split into five lions.
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To the Battle Bridge!
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There; fixed that for you.
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for you, good sir. one of the funniest things I have ever seen
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a127/r3an1m4t3d/99problemsjordi.jpg [photobucket.com]
Title should end, "...and remain functional." (Score:5, Funny)
Or, "...and can be reassembled."
I've had far too many phones that split in two, or otherwise fell apart.
you're doing it wrong (Score:2, Funny)
Oh right- like YOU'VE never let a call ring long when it's on vibrate in your front pants pocket...
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Maybe your phone rings long enough for this to be of any use to YOU, but I can't make mine ring long enough to bother.
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Maybe your phone rings long enough for this to be of any use to YOU, but I can't make mine ring long enough to both
I couldn't find the completely appropriate "IT Crowd" clip to suit this comment (the one with the modified mobile phone) but this will make a decent substitute. [youtube.com]
12 megapixel camera? (Score:1, Insightful)
How useful is this when you are stuck with the little lens on the camera?
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You actually expect the consumers to understand that the lens is the most important part of a camera? GIGO
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That's kind of a terrible way to say it, sticking a $5,000 lens in front of a $5 sensor wouldn't make the sensor work any better.
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It'd allow you to take four 3 megapixel pictures in extremely rapid succession.
A picture would be nice (Score:2)
To bad the link just goes to an advertisement page that doesn't load and there isn't even a picture of this wacky new phone. Oh well, I guess I just don't care that much.
My keyboard is also wireless (Score:2)
If I pull hard enough, the cord for my keyboard will come off. Should this also be a selling feature?
The summary doesn't note if their keyboard works once it's been yanked off.
One handy thing I see... (Score:3, Interesting)
More phones that we don't get.... (Score:2)
It's always nice to see the phones we're not getting.... : (
I'm still sore about the Dell Android phone that's not being released in the USA
http://tekobot.com/dell-anounces-android-based-mini-3-smartphone-to-be-available-only-in-brazil-and-china/ [tekobot.com]
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If apple can sell a phone without keyboard or copy-paste, why not?
iPhones have keyboards, just not one with discrete physical keys. Also, copy/paste has been available on the iPhone for about six months now.
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Hey, I agree with you, it should have been included right from the get-go. I wasn't defending Apple, only pointing out to the GP that they don't sell a phone without copy/paste--at least, not any longer.
To be honest, though, I'm not sure your average iPhone user really cares. I do more with mine than most people and still I only use c/p maybe twice a month at best.
It really needs to go on a diet. (Score:2, Troll)
I found a website that lists the dimensions as: "11.4 x 5.1 x 20.4 cm and weight is about 173g."
For reference, an iPhone is 11.6 x 1.2 x 6.2 cm and weighs 135g. The Droid is 11.6 x 1.4 x 6.0 cm and weighs 169g.
I can't think of anyone who will want to carry something that thick around in their pocket. Even if you split it in half, both halves are still going to be thicker than either the iPhone or the Droid
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I call BS. There's no way the phone in the video is 5cm thick.
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I call BS. There's no way the phone in the video is 5cm thick.
It sounds about as attractive as my laptop battery if it.
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After doing some more searching, another site [letsgomobile.org] gives these values: "114x51x20.4 mm" it would appear that the first site goofed up when converting between cm and mm. If this site is correct, the phone is still pretty fat (in my opinion), just not nearly quite so much.
Based on the numbers from the first site, the phone would actually b
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The numbers from Docomo's own site [nttdocomo.co.jp] agree with the ones there (and also note that it's 19.6mm at the thinnest point).
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Your, quite frankly, appalling metric mistake notwithstanding (my iPhone is not 6cm thick!!!), living in Japan as I do, allow me to offer some insight:
Phones here are frickin' thick, bulky, and godawful to carry. This is one of the main reasons I was so excited for the iPhone. I can carry it in my pocket and I don't have a giant brick bulging out of my ass. I can sit down comfortably with it in my pocket.
There is a rather-unfounded belief in the geekworld that Japan is technologically advanced, and that
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The United States Postal Service still uses carbon-less copies (You know, the carbon copy format without the black page with the carbon) for at one of it's optional services (The copy is for a receipt as the main portion is affixed to the package or envelope in question.
Also Japan does have top of the line phone related services, even if the average phone lags behind the US, and many phones found in the US do have equivalents there (I'd be very surprised if they did not have a Motorola Razr equivalent for e
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My Phone splits in two... (Score:2, Funny)
Why?? (Score:2)
Why? What is gained by allowing a phone to split in half?
This is a serious question: I can't RTFA because the web site is apparently overloaded at present. (And I can't listen to the video as I have no headset or speakers).
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Well, the slide out portion of the keyboard is a rather typical phone keypad, but the part that faces the back of the phone proper has a miniature qwerty keyboard (with several layers of shift-style modifiers. The separated keyboard communicates with the main phone by Bluetooth, and includes speaker and microphone so it can be used as a handset while allowing you to continue to use the screen to control phone features.
The phone proper also has speaker and microphone of course. So one can leave the keyboard
That's Nothing (Score:3, Funny)
That's nothing: My wife can make ANY phone split into multiple parts. All she does is fling it to the ground when she can't immediately figure out how to work it.
Also; TV remotes, house thermostats, lawn mowers....
];)
Yo dawg (Score:2)
The LG Versa already does this (Score:1)
It's not exactly the same, but the phone comes with an expansion port built in and a keyboard you attach to it. They plan to release other hardware expansion devices for it over time.
http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/lg-versa-verizon-wireless/4505-6454_7-33530742.html?tag=mncol;lst [cnet.com]
Great! (Score:2)
Alternate link (Score:2)
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Hello, operatah? (Score:2)
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I didn't bother.
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and only one of them rings when I call it.
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So when will Banach and Tarski release their phone prototype?