Nokia's 'swivel' to change the way we use phones?

Nokia's new swivelling effort
Nokia's new swivelling effort

While Nokia is still firmly the largest, most chest-beating mobile manufacturer in the world, its market share has started to slip in recent years, so it's no surprise we're seeing crazy ideas like the new swivelling Nokia handset.

Let's be nice and honest here: this is mostly based on a snippet of information published by the Boy Genius Report and a mock up by the same site, but we like it so much we thought we'd share it with you anyway.

So the story goes that Nokia has been beavering away at a handset that has a swivelling screen that opens up to reveal a full 'E71-type handset', complete with QWERTY keyboard.

Text the nation

It runs S40, so while the full QWERTY-enabled E- and N-Series phones might have some juicy keyboards, this will be probably aimed more at the social networking masses (ie the young 'uns).

Apparently it's going to be launched in July on Verizon in the US, and the jury's out on whether this will make it over the pond to the UK. The likes of the Sidekick, with their swivelling screens, have been a huge hit in the US but never enjoyed anywhere near the same success in the UK.

Anyway, look at the mock up for now (which is apparently based on the tipster's first impressions of the handset) and make up your mind: should we petition Nokia to bring this to the UK, or start to ask questions about the sanity of the handset design department in Finland?

Via Boy Genius Report

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.