Fonkraft modular smartphone gets pulled from Indiegogo

Fonkraft modular phone
No modular phone for you yet - sorry.

There's some bad news if you were hoping to get your hands on a Fonkraft modular smartphone later this year - the innovative hardware project has been pulled from Indiegogo with no official explanation given.

All we have to go on is a tweet from Fonkraft promising an update soon. "Since when are platforms not people deciding what to crowdfund and what not?" it reads - which makes it sound like they were honest in their intentions at least.

Backers have had their money refunded and received an email from Indiegogo's Trust and Safety team: "The campaign (Fonkraft modular smartphone) that you contributed to has been suspended due to not meeting our trust and safety standards," it read.

Mod cons

Before the listing got yanked, it was promoting a 5-inch handset running Android Lollipop, complete with a modular system that would let you swap out the camera lens, RAM, battery and display as required.

Various different configurations were available to pre-order, including a budget $99 (around £65, AU$126) model or a premium $200 (around £132, AU$255) edition. The crowdfunding listing has now disappeared but the Fonkraft website is still up.

Of course producing a modular phone is a hard trick to pull off - Google has been working on Project Ara for several years now, with a initial device launch rumoured to be happening later this year.

David Nield
Freelance Contributor

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.