Square Phones: A Clamshell Reimagined? | MobilMania.cz

While manufacturers are racing to build a bigger and more elongated display, the enthusiast community is starting to discover the exact opposite magic. The square format claims to be something completely new, and the first experiences indicate that it definitely has something to it. At the same time, you don’t have to immediately buy a new device of a practically unknown brand and start experimenting – a similar effect can be achieved with some folding models, just don’t open them. But can you do it?

iKKO Mind One Pro tries to break up the same design of phones. It has a square display, a flip-up camera – it just wants to be different

It will serve as an example of a similar-looking phone with the dimensions of a clamshell when closed iKKO Mind One Pro. It is a phone from a brand that produces audio products, which unfortunately did not do very well, especially the sound is very bad. However, this model fully demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of square phones.

In terms of dimensions, we are practically talking about the secondary display of the LG Wing. In addition, this phone fulfills the same role as the external display of folding clamshells. You can also fully control some of them via the external display

What to expect from them? Above all, compactness, they can easily fit in a pocket, on the sleeve of a running jacket or in a handbag. The phone in question has the dimensions of the lower part of the dialer LG Wing. Is it just a coincidence?

Ideal for writing texts

For square phones, the display is wider, so in the end it will also display a larger keyboard, on which you type with your thumbs much more comfortably and often with fewer typos. The square format is ideal for text communication – when reading e-mails, chatting or viewing documents. At the same time, you can cover the entire display with one hand without the need for special one-handed modes, so controllability is not a problem either. And it’s also important that the phone doesn’t look like a phone at first glance, it’s more like a music player.

This display looks very unusual on a phone, but we’ve actually seen it before. On the LG Wing or on the outside of the folding clamshells

Otherwise, there are a lot of compromises, some of which users of the above-mentioned smartphone only came to after some time. Right from the start, it’s clear that you won’t enjoy videos in landscape or portrait mode on this display, in both cases wide black bars fill the rest of the screen. The same applies to a number of other applications optimized for 18:9 or 20:9 aspect ratio. While some applications may run in compatible mode, some user interface elements may well overlap.

Videos and battery as a problem

Although the square display shows enough text in width, it offers less in height than you are used to – so you will have to keep scrolling the web pages. Another problem can be ergonomics when holding the phone to your ear, for example during long calls. Leaving aside the fact that the sensor that turns off the display may not work 100%, the phone is shorter in length – so the microphone is further from the mouth and it may take some time to get used to its shape when making a call.

But with such a small phone, there may be a problem with holding it securely during a call

And then there’s the battery. The compact body can only fit a compact battery, which may not even last a whole day – and we are talking about average, not intensive, use. Well, you really can’t expect any miracles from the 2200mAh battery. So far, only this one brand offers square phones, which in practice means that if you want a similar device, you basically have no choice. Or actually… you have.

You can simulate a similar square experience thanks to folding clamshells. Although Samsung allows only a limited set of widgets to be run on the external display of its clamshells, Motorola clamshells, for example, can be comfortably controlled on the external display without opening the phone. Could you function on just such a small surface? If you didn’t have the urge to open your phone even once while using the Razr, the answer would be yes.

You can turn the camera from the back to the front, where the traditional selfie is missing. Also thanks to this, this phone does not have a classic face unlock

At the moment, the Mind One Pro feels more like a secondary phone that you take where you don’t want to take your primary smartphone – it’s small enough to fit in a running jacket sleeve pocket or purse. As with the clamshell’s external display, however, you have to reckon with a whole range of compromises.

In addition, the above-mentioned model only received a 4G chipset (and even its less powerful IoT version), does not support facial unlocking, the side fingerprint reader is always active and the equipment lacks an Always-on display. Contactless payments didn’t work on the phone and the camera had to be rotated manually. On the other hand, it will shoot it directly in your face – for example during video calls.

QWERTY keyboard as an interesting addition to a square phone. While you “extend” other smartphones to the extreme, here the phone with the keyboard actually still has normal dimensions

Square phones will definitely not become a dominant trend, but the idea itself is still important to me – an effort to change the current trend. In order for square phones to have a better chance of breaking through, well-known brands would have to stand behind them, which would debug the above-mentioned shortcomings and add, for example, a silicon battery on top. In its current state, the above-mentioned phone has shortcomings that may bother a lot of users.

So if in the future you’re tempted by compact phones that look completely different from what you’re used to, think mainly on their shortcomings.