Yesterday I saw an article on UMPCportal.com describing a pocketable with a rather extreme aspect ratio. It looks sort of like a very long iPhone (until you see the OS and side buttons; watch the videos). For discussion purposes, they're calling it the "Moorestown X".


Today, there's an article on engadget about the Lenovo Pocket Yoga which is conceptually the same thing with a physical keyboard.

I thought they might be interesting to discuss here.

At first look, they seem kind of crazy, but after watching the videos on the first one, I thought "this could be do-able". Even though I despise virtual keyboards, I like the split-thumb keyboard on the "Moorestown X", it sort of reminds me of a Samsung Q1 Ultra or WiBrain. With the right OS (phone version of Maemo, phone version of Ubuntu, Android, maybe the iPhone version of OS X), it could be a decent pocketable solution.

(but not with WinMO, and most likely not with Symbian)

The Lenovo, which is a 2 year old concept that is confirmed to not go into production, seems similarly "possible", but just adds a keyboard you could use for a little bit faster typing.

They're both as long as a more traditional phone, making for a slightly more comfortable phone experience for us older types. But they would be more "jacket inside breast pocket" pocketable than "jeans pocket" pocketable. I think that might be my one reservation -- I don't need this device to be my netbook, my netbook needs to be bigger. But I do want a pocketable to be "pocketable". So I'd have to see if this really would fit comfortably in my pants/shorts front pocket.

Though, I wonder if, using the new flexible oled screens, if you could make the Moorestown X fold in half length wise (in either direction), giving you a short touchscreen device or clamshell when closed, and this elongated device when open.

Thoughts?