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TL;DR
- Important teased its “Gem” smartphone {hardware} again in 2019 as a follow-up to the PH-1.
- When Important shut down in 2020, work on the Gem shut down with it.
- Often the uncommon prototype {hardware} surfaces on eBay, resulting in hands-on encounters like we get as we speak.
Are smartphones too boring lately? Positive, foldable telephones are actually a actuality, however even these have been round for sufficient generations that they’re beginning to really feel acquainted. When’s the final time you discovered your self excited by a very “bizarre” cellphone? At the moment we’re taking a stroll down reminiscence lane as we take into consideration probably the most distinctive cellphone designs of the previous decade, whereas attending to see some newly launched video of this promising {hardware}, doomed to by no means see the industrial mild of day.
Smartphone critics usually lament the shortage of gamers within the trendy market, with solely a handful of corporations competing in any significant vogue. Whereas true, often we do see somebody courageous sufficient to step up as a brand new voice, as we did again in 2017 when Android co-founder Andy Rubin and his firm Important launched the PH-1 handset. It obtained an honest reception, and followers puzzled what would possibly come subsequent for the corporate… all the way in which up till it folded in 2020.
However earlier than it did, again in 2019, Important teased what will be the most pronounced departure from mainstream cellphone design we’ve seen an organization take so significantly: the virtually remote-control-shaped “Challenge Gem”.
For anybody tired of run-of-the-mill slabs, this sort of form for a smartphone felt recent and stuffed with potentialities — how splendidly pocketable! However our enjoyable wouldn’t final, and with Important closing its doorways the next yr, our possibilities of ever proudly owning a Gem cellphone closed with them. Whereas we’ll should reside with that disappointment, this week we get to consider what may have been, upon the publication of a uncommon Gem hands-on video.
Nova Launcher engineer Rob Wainwright not too long ago shared the information of their profitable eBay buy of a Gem prototype (by way of 9to5Google). And since he likes all of us a lot, we get an up-close take a look at this {hardware} and its in-development software program.
With its 2160 × 560 display, the cellphone’s show has a facet ratio of practically 4:1 — a strong twice as broad (or tall, orientation however) as essentially the most excessive smartphone screens you’ll discover as we speak. As you possibly can see within the video, the {hardware} is certainly purposeful, at the same time as some options usually are not lively on this explicit prototype. Understandably, the cellphone runs a reasonably customized launcher, benefiting from this very vertical display. This video coming to us from the supply it does, we additionally get to see the Gem working Nova Launcher, which seems fairly good contemplating it was by no means optimized for screens like this.
It seems like many apps had been nonetheless in growth when this prototype existed, and a number of spots within the launcher are simply holding house for future apps, however we do get a peek at some, just like the cellphone’s digital camera software program — and it’s simply as bizarre as you would possibly count on from a display this form. Verify all of it out within the video above.
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