Motorola FLIPOUT and Nokia X5-01 (2010)

Announced June 2010

These days, almost every smartphone looks the same. But five years ago this month both Nokia and Motorola were experimenting with square smartphones with physical keyboards.

Motorola's take on the idea was the Motorola FLIPOUT, an Android smartphone with a little 2.8" 320 x 240 pixel display and a QWERTY keyboard that rotated out. Measuring 67 x 67 mm, the FLIPOUT was almost perfectly square apart from the rounded edges. Although it was a fully-featured Android device with GPS, 3.5G and WiFi, the small screen must have been severely limiting, and physical keyboards have since gone the way of the Dodo on most smartphones.

The quirky FLIPOUT was a bit of a flop at the time, but if this esoteric design appeals to you then new ones can still be had for less than €200 with used ones in various conditions coming in at about €70 or less.

In the same month, Nokia announced the Nokia X5-01 slider phone which wasn't as square as the Motorola and featured a 2.4" screen with the same resolution as the FLIPOUT. Unlike the Motorola, the X5-01 was a Symbian device. Symbian was a operating system much more suited to smaller displays, and overall specifications were very similar to its rival except the X5-01 lacked WiFi but had a better camera.

Unusual Nokia devices are always collectible, but the rareness of the Nokia X5-01 makes it very hard to obtain.

In the end, smartphones with tiny screens fell out of favour and on-screen keyboards such as SwiftKey and Swype meant that most people didn't want an actual keyboard. But perhaps the time is right for manufacturers to experiment with different form factors again?

Nokia 6111 (2005)

Announced June 2005

Nokia is not really well-known for slider phones, but ten years ago the little Nokia 6111 proved to be a popular and attractive device that had many fans.

Weighing just 92 grams, the 6111 was a compact device with a 1.8" 128 x 160 pixel display, a 1 megapixel camera with a flash, an FM radio and Bluetooth. Although the 6111 supported MP3 ringtones, it couldn't be used as a media player.

There was some basic internet connectivity such as a WAP browser and email client, but this was a 2G-only device and nothing like the sort of smartphones we have today.

But perhaps the main selling point with the 6111 was the way it looked. The curved front and sides combined with the relatively thick 23mm casing made the phone look rather cute. In white or pink, the 6111 looked like a "girlie phone", but the black version looked more like a "boy's toy", which was quite a clever bit of design.

Back in the day, the Nokia 6111 was set to retail for €270 SIM-free before tax. Today, you can get a similar new handset for about one tenth of that price, or if you fancy the 6111 as a retro-classic then they are commonly available in good condition for around €30.

Apple iPhone 4 (2010)

Announced June 2010

Announced five years ago this month, the Apple iPhone 4 was a complete redesign which introduced several significant new features, but it was not without its problems.

Physically, the iPhone 4 looked rather different from the previous models. A rather uncompromising and somewhat brutalist design, the new version of the phone had a flat glass back and the edge of the device also served as the antenna, giving it a distinctive look.

Although the display size was still 3.5", the iPhone 4 has a relatively high resolution of 640 x 960 pixels, giving it a display density of over 300 pixels per inch. Apple called this a "Retina Display" because most people would not be able to make out the individual pixels. The iPhone 4 basically had a comparable pixel density to some printers, so Apple certainly had something with a bit of "wow factor here".

Apple have always lagged behind a bit when it comes to camera megapixel counts, and the iPhone 4 was their first device to feature a relatively modest five megapixel main camera, and it was also the first Apple device to have a front-facing camera for video calling. The processor was also faster than previous versions, and the iPhone 4 went some way to addressing the battery life problems of older models.

As is traditional, the iPhone 4 brought a new version of the operating system, in this case iOS 4. This finally brought multitasking to the iPhone, something that had been sorely missed in previous generations.

Despite all the improvements, the iPhone 4 is also remembered for problems with the novel antenna arrangement. If held in a certain way (bridging the WiFi and cellular antennae) then the phone signal would fade and cut out. Apple originally tried to play this down, but in the end it had to admit that there was a design flaw and it offered free "bumpers" to go on the outside of the phone, fixing the problem.

One other problem was that the white version of the iPhone 4 wasn't available at launch, and in fact it took nearly a year to come to market. Apple reportedly had technical problems with the plastics itself, and also the underlying camera hardware had to be altered because the sensor behaved differently in the white case.

The iPhone 4 set the basic physical format of the device for the next four years, in 2011 the iPhone 4s was a faster version, in 2012 the iPhone 5 stretched the display to 4" and was followed up by 2013's 64-bit iPhone 5s. It wasn't until 2014 and the iPhone 6 that we saw a significant redesign in the way the iPhone looked.

Very rare Nokia 7700 for sale on eBay for £1700

Last month a non-working example of the incredibly rare Nokia 7700 appeared on eBay in the UK and sold for £1020.

Only a tiny handful of these have ever come to market, but now there is another one that appears to be in immaculate condition and is fully working (although bear in mind that this is a prototype) with a starting bid of £1700.

Strictly one for collectors rather than somebody looking for a smartphone they can use every day, the Nokia 7700 is a highly unusual and rather beautiful device to look at. The product was cancelled before launch and only a small number of technology samplers were produced.

We'll be keeping an eye on this particular auction to see how it goes. But if you have one of these lying in a cupboard somewhere.. it is probably time to sell it!

UPDATE
This Nokia 7700 didn't seem to sell at this price, but another Nokia 7700 in working order sold for $1,140.06 (approximately £720). This particular model was located in Finland, so perhaps many collectors missed out on it. There does seem to have been quite a few of these coming up for sale recently, which is unusual.

Nokia 770 Internet Tablet (2005)

Announced May 2005

If you mention the word "Tablet" today then most people will immediately think of the Apple iPad or perhaps one of Samsung's many Android tablets. But ten years ago this month, it was Nokia that was pioneering in the early tablet market. Initially announced in May 2005 (but only shipping in November) the Nokia 770 caused quite a stir when it was revealed to the public.

The Nokia 770 broke with tradition in many ways. Firstly, at a time that Nokia's smartphones were all running Symbian, the 770 ran a version of Linux called Maemo. The 4.1" 800 x 480 pixel display may seem small by today's standards, but it was much bigger and better than any smartphone on the market. But perhaps the most significant thing was that it wasn't a phone, it couldn't make calls and to access the Internet you either needed to use WiFi or connect to another phone using Bluetooth.

Pairing a tablet with a Bluetooth phone was a slightly fiddly arrangement, but the 770 would work with pretty much any Bluetooth device that had a data connection. It also meant that you weren't lumbered with carrying around the tablet when you just wanted to carry a much more compact phone, and because the tablet and phone both had their own batteries then it meant that web surfing wouldn't drain your phone.

One striking thing about the Nokia 770 was the physical design, with a very retro-futuristic look, and a brushed metal reversible hard shell. Although the 770 was originally designed to be used with the integrated stylus, a software update made it easier to use with just a finger instead.

Maemo was a much more sophisticated operating system than Symbian, and it soon established a dedicated group of developers who starting porting apps from other Linux-based platforms. Out-of-the-box the Nokia 770 had a web browser, RSS reader, email client, some games and PIM functionality, but it wasn't too difficult for someone with a bit of technical knowledge to add more. 2006 saw a major software update which made the 770 a lot nicer to use.

Despite all the promise of a little Linux-based computer the hardware platform was very limited with a tiny 64MB of memory and 128MB of onboard flash storage plus an RS-MMC slot. The ARM-based processor was clocked at 252MHz, which wasn't very fast even then. Many of these problems were fixed with the N800 launched in 2007 and a number of other devices following.

Ultimately, Nokia could never quite successfully transition these niche devices into success in the smartphone market. The Maemo-based Nokia N900 was the first and last Maemo-based smartphone launched in 2009, and a catastrophic decision to try to merge Maemo with Intel's Moblin OS stalled the development of the product line with disastrous effects.

It's an interesting and inexpensive device for collectors, and although they are quite rare they tend to sell for less than €50.. although remember that functionality is strictly limited compared to a tablet of today!

Nokia 5140i (2005)

Announced April 2005

Designed to be more rugged than a standard mobile phone, the Nokia 5140i was resistant to bumps, water and dust ingress and followed on from the Nokia 5140 and Nokia 5100 handsets.

Although most of the functions were that of a very simple Nokia phone, the 5140i also sported a flashlight and a digital compass and thermometer, both of questionable reliability. It had an FM radio, but no music player and only a basic 0.3 megapixel camera.

But one thing that put the 5140i ahead of pretty much every phone was its support for NFC and RFID tags through an optional shell. Back then the actual uses of NFC were unclear, and to be honest the situation hasn't changed that much today. To a large extent NFC has always been a solution looking for a problem.

The durability and simplicity of the 5140i made it rather popular, and if you collect such things then they are freely available today with prices ranging between about €35 to €70 depending on condition. There are far more durable handsets on the market however, but the 5140i is still a practical classic for people who just want a phone.

References:
GSMArena: Nokia 5140i Review
Microsoft: Nokia 5140i NFC Shell Guide [pdf]

Futureretro: LG Watch Urbane

LG Watch Urbane

Smartwatches are a new-old thing. About 6 years ago we saw a rush of "watch phones" such as the LG GD910 which included a SIM card and some basic feature phone functionality, but these never took off (despite which, they are very collectable devices today). The whole concept seemed to be quickly forgotten.

But the concept of wearables came back in 2014 with smartwatches such as the LG G Watch and many other devices, which generated a lot of media buzz but it didn't really translate into sales. But early-generation products are sometimes a bit rough around the edges, and the new LG Watch Urbane seeks to address some of these issues.

It's certainly an elegant device, as was last year's LG G Watch R, but this has the latest version of the Android Wear OS and is the first LG smartwatch to support WiFi, meaning that it won't have to be slaved to a phone all the time.

So it this a Futureretro device? Will people look back at the LG Watch Urbane in (say) 2020 and say "that was a design classic"? Perhaps as with the watch phones from half a decade ago, this is the point at which smartwatches with either sink or swim. We give it a Futureretro score of 5/10.

The LG Watch Urbane might either mark the point at which the smartwatch market became really mature, or it might mark the point at which consumer indifference kills off the concept. Remember phones with 3D screens? They were launched with great hype, but they didn't sell. Smartwatches may still go the way of 3D phones.

A quick tour round the tech specs reveals a 1.3" 320 x 320 pixel plastic OLED display, a 1.2 GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storate, a bunch of sensors including a compass, barometer and heart-rate sensor plus the whole package is dust and water resistant to IP67 standards.

The Watch Urbane is set to roll out to Korea this week, with major markets following this month, with the device available through the Google Play store at a price of around €400 to €420.