Something completely new in cellphones

The Phonebloks concept has been making the rounds on the internet, and it is an intriguing idea. In a nutshell, the phonebloks device gives you a main board that you attach the bits you want to. So, if you want a great camera, you just pop off the old one, and add the upgraded version. If you don’t use bluetooth, you skip it and free up space for something else. You can even choose a full or half screen, for those that would like to snap in a hardware keyboard. The idea is very cool, and something I would certainly be interested in. I think the first rub comes with how they are marketing the idea.

One of the big selling points is how much more ‘green’ this is. There are so many devices being discarded as people upgrade their phones… etc. Does this really do anything to stem that tide? Presumably, advancements in processors are going to continue. The same goes for storage. And batteries will continue to be batteries. I suppose you may hang on to your main board a little longer than in the past, but even that will most likely be replaced. Because if you don’t have phonebloks main board 2.0, you can’t use the must-have widget just released by factory X.

And it would seem to open a pandora’s box of compatibility shenanigans. This OS upgrade requires this main board. Or this blok requires a minimum of that OS. And that hasn’t even touched on the big question of being able to get the phone companies on board. At the end of the day, it’s an interesting concept. But until there is real hardware addressing some of those questions, it’s really not much more. Here’s a video with a better look at the whole idea.

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Tags: cellphone, phonebloks

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