A WinMo Phone with a Morphing Keypad

[Brandon Miniman]

The Sharp WS020SH (or "Willcom 03" for short) went under the radar when it was announced in late May by the Japanese carrier Willcom.

It sports a maxed out Windows Mobile resolution of 800x480 on a 3.0" screen (like the XPERIA X1), and runs with a 520MHz Marvel CPU, 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM, Bluetooth, and WiFi. To make browsing better, it'll come with Opera 9.5. It has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, making the device about 18mm thick, or a little slimmer than a TyTN II.

To make things interesting, the device will feature no physical hardware buttons on the front. Instead, with a touch of a button on the side of the device, you can change the front button layout to be either a dialpad for making calls, or a standard WinMo layout including a D-Pad and Start menu button, as shown below.

If you're brave and can understand Google's attempt to translate Japanese, check out the press release. And for a few more images of the dynamic keypad of the Willcomm 03, check out the post at TechOn.

[Rizzo]

WOW! now that is tight
These PDA manufacturers keep it moving and showing that Windows Mobile can compete with the iPhone. Wonder if this will get released here in the UK and if it does, will it have WinMo 7 cos u know how long it takes for these Japanese devices to reach this side of the world, it takes YONKS!