Gearfuse

Believe it or not, this exquisite phone concept design was made by a high school student. 15-year-old Andrew Kim posted his design on a forum recently and has understandably been getting great feedback. The Butterfly features a horizontal slider with dual AMOLED touchscreens. Unlike other horizontal sliding phones, Butterfly would feature a “slide ‘n tilt” feature, allowing the first screen to become your keypad.

The phone would also feature a SD card slot, audio/video playback, and a side button which deactivates the touchscreen for pocket-friendly use. Like any other design, there are some drawbacks. For one, you would have to slide out the phone to use the keypad, and then slide it back to activate the call, which we guess could be a perk if you look at it from a keypad-free standpoint. Still though, absolutely gorgeous. And we thought the Pantech concept phones were cool? They need to hire this kid.

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Seeing all of these Pantech concept phones in public is as rare as a understandable sentence coming from Ozzy Osbourne’s mouth. Meaning it almost never happens. Visitors of the CTIA conference were lucky enough to see a showcase of these concepts. Pantech says that not only is it rare for these phones to be shown together in public, but they aren’t together much period. We’re happy they are getting a chance to see their friends.

The phones themselves are an eccentric mix, but all cooler than any other phone on the market now. It’s rare when you see a concept reach he consumer floor. We guess because of the cost, but we dream of being able to get one of these eventually. Pictured are a few of our favorites. (more…)

We posted a spy pic of the W51PT last month, and Pantech finally announced the Korean version of that at CES this week. We believe that the specifications are similar, EVDO support, 2.2″ QVGA screen, 2MP camera with autofocus, but we are still waiting for announcement from AU KDDI’s side in mid January, as well as the confirmation on its thickness (W51PT thinner than 15mm?). None the less, the real Korean model looks as good as what the pictures promised. For the time being, you can only get the white version in Korea, we expect that there will be more colors available by the time it is launched in Japan. — Sam Chan

Press release in Korean [Pantech]

The Gearfuse Plumbers got their hands on some leaked photos of what’s supposed to be Pantech’s (the largest phone manufacturer in Korea after Samsung and LG) unannounced W51PT for Japan AU KDDI’s EV-DO Rev.A network. The main display should be a 2.4″ QVGA, camera is a 2.1 Megapixel CCD with autofocus, One-Seg DMB tuner and microSD slot are built in and the thickness is kept below 12mm (103 by 48 by 11.9mm, weighing 123g). If all that is real, Pantech might have hit the jackpot this time. We think it looks good and just want to share with you. — Sam Chan

Pantech has announced it’s IM-S150, which seems to be geared towards the hipsters of Korea. Despite it’s resemblance in design to a slab of pavement from any typical American road, Pantech says that since design has become such an imporant focus of the mobile community, that this is there answer to the trendy line of designs being released. On the technical side, the IM-S150 features an advanced quality screen using dual TFT LCD displays which can display 260,000 colors, or slightly less then the amount of shades Michael Jackson has been over the years. The phone will be released this week in Korea, branded with the SKY logo, Pantech’s number one line of phones. Enjoy your slab of concrete! — Andrew Dobrow

Pantech IM-S150 Phone [AVING USA]

One thing I’ve learned from watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air through my childhood, was the phrase “if you have it, flaunt it”. Much like Carlton and his crazy swiveling hip dance, the Pantech IM-R110 (another Korean made mobile) adds a crazy swivel screen to it’s crazy t-shaped body. Along with it’s love it or hate it design, comes the standards of Korean cellphones, such as DMB and 3D gaming capabilities, and also the ability to double as a portable media player. And with a (surprisingly low) 2 megapixel camera, which adds the feature of an auto focus, snap shots are also relatively easy for the amateur photographer in you.

Surprise, surprise. The phone is only available in Korea. *sigh* A man can dream…a man can dream. Catch the jump for some more pics.

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