While we got a tantalizing glimpse at the Nokia Kinetic Device at Nokia World, we didn’t really get to dive into it because of all the hustle and bustle going on. Well, at the Nokia Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif., we were able to handle this prototype and it looks very interesting.
It’s definitely a prototype, so if this ever came to market, it would look entirely different. The Nokia Kinetic Device is built around the concept of physically bending and twisting the phone to interact with the content on it. Why would you want to do that? Well, when you’re manipulating a touchscreen, you’re going to block some of your screen real estate and that doesn’t happen with this type of device.
Additionally, the Nokia Kinetic Device could be more durable than existing devices, so you wouldn’t have to worry about dropping your phone. The analog controls of twisting and bending also gives you granularity of controls and that could really come in handy when playing a racing game.
I played with the Kinetic Device for a few minutes and it was responsive, although you do have to learn a new set of input methods. This is a research project for a reason though, so I wouldn’t expect something exactly like this to land on retail stores but elements of this could really augment the mobile experience. Check out the video below and let us know what you think.
