Huawei looked to Sweden for inspiration on their new phone. They partnered up with the Claesson Koivisto Rune studio and produced this phone they call the Folded Leaf. It’s a device that’s meant to perform only the most basic cellular functions, the calling functions and SMS/MMS messaging. It strips out all of the high speed data functions that we smartphone jockeys are used to having and provides a handset that’s meant to be comfortable for direct chatting without all of the extra bells and whistles.
The basic idea is alright. The biggest thing that they emphasize is taking the phone back to the idea as primarily a communications device. They decry the proliferation of apps above human interaction. The response comes in the form of a neato little phone.
I’m not hugely impressed. To me, this thing looks like a redesigned jitterbug. At least it’s going to have a camera. If it has a very good camera, it might even be worth it for people who are stuck on AT&T who can’t really take advantage of their full data capabilities anyway.