I myself and all people I talked to think that that the black one has no
style. Also the orange-white looks cool.
It is not a blocker for me but would be for an average user who is not
Open fan.
Fancy color case is a must in the future.
Stroller wrote:
On 25 Apr 2008, at 16:25, Lowell Higley wrote:
Nine out of ten "typical consumers" I show it to think it's ugly and
wouldn't buy it because of looks alone. If I show it to a techie
type, I get the "what are the specs?" question. Lesson? To the
consumer, beauty is only skin deep.
This is typical of the consumer, though (and of the place the mobile
phone has taken in the mainstream, of "reflecting" the owner's
"personality").
At the end of the day, there are a hundred mobile phone designs on the
market - and for probably this reason. Substantially all mobile phones
do the same thing - make & receive calls - and I guess appearance is a
primary differentiation. If your one consumer in ten finds the
Freerunner acceptable (or even, shudder!, attractive) enough to that
they'll buy it, then Freerunner surely has a far greater market
interest than most mobiles! It's all a matter of taste and I'll bet
there are very few phones on the market which would be _universally_
considered non-ugly.
We should also remember that OpenMoko is probably not aiming at the
"girlie" market, of consumers for whom appearance and daintiness is
the primary concern. I am reminded of a girl I knew two or three years
ago who was pleased with her new mobile - it was a small clamshell
design with a second screen on the outside; the outer screen showed
the time or, when it rang, the caller's name or number. A screen saver
was available for both screens - floating pink & pastel bubbles were
chosen.
When making calls is the only function then I do like small phones,
but the aforementioned girlie phone had no features that appealed to
me over any of the other clamshell designs available on the market for
the past decade. The Freerunner is surely aimed to compete with phones
based on Windows Moble & Symbian - phones on which email, calendaring
& media playback are important features (it may even compete, then,
with the PSP).
The Freerunner will be replacing a Sony Ericsson P990i
<http://www.cellphonebeat.com/images/p990i_.jpg> here - now THAT'S a
phone which could barely be more ugly, but nevertheless it sold well
on its features (and besides, ugliness is STILL only an opinion).
Stroller.
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