most of you are average

Does the market really hunger for a cell phone that has a transparent screen to enable you to see information or text while you walk in order to not physically hit stationary objects? Maybe/Maybe not, but it is undeniably cool. Does anyone else think it would be weird to see someones ear while they were talking on the phone–would an ear doctor be interested in a peepshow of this nature? Not sure about those last two items but they aren’t going to slow down the November release of Sony’s latest portfolio piece, the Pureness.

Whereas I think that this transparency could potentially increase the potential misuse/abuse of cell phones being used while driving products like this are built to push the envelope in regards to design and technology–effectively a merger of form and function. It’s not uncommon in the cell phone space to release something of this nature and to keep it at a premium price (RAZR marketing anyone?) so I would expect that this would be the case. Unless a major carrier picks this up (since it’s sure to be GSM it’s either AT&T or T-Mobile) I would think that the cost of such progressive technology might make this phone prohibitively expensive, which may be the case even after subsidy.

On that note, Sony could have debuted the screen with a phone having physical keys which would have enabled them to get this new feature to market faster. The same can be said about the keypad since that is a shift in their keypad strategy–why bat for the fences with both when you could spread the innovation through a family of products that culminate in something like the Pureness? ‘Morphing’ keys alone, similar to the ROKR e8 from Motorola can add both cost and battery life issues.  I would think that the LCD screen would have the same net effect, but I could be wrong.

These issues notwithstanding Sony Ericsson has maintained their approach to digital media, and by that I mean to say the graphic treatments are clean and compelling. The dog and pony show-style video above definitely shows off the potential of the screen technology, which looks cool. I don’t know about anyone else but I have seen plenty of teaser videos that make products look unstoppable and the only one that ever truly delivered was the iphones’.

Speaking of which, if the Pureness doesn’t come in at or below that price point they might as well shoot for the moon, Nokia-style and try to charge $300+ to put it into only a select few hands. As previously mentioned it may be out of the reach of most customers even after the carriers put incentives toward the phone. Either way, I want to get my hands on one just to see that screen do it’s thing. Via Giz and about seven other cell phone sites.