Flipping hell, the clamshell is back

Can Samsung's Hennessy herald a new era for the flip phone? Probably not. But, oh, the nostalgia...
Can Samsung's Hennessy herald a new era for the flip phone? Probably not. But, oh, the nostalgia...
This week, after a period of holiday indolence, I tried to catch up with what's been going on in mobile.
One story caught my eye above all others.
Samsung's new Android-based Hennessy clamshell phone.
This is massive, isn't it?
First there's the name. For British men in their 40s like me, there's only one Hennessy and that's Terry Hennessy, the Derby County midfielder of the 1970s. This guy is about as far from the gelled-up 21st century football athlete as you can get. Balding, overweight and looks about 50.
I've included a pic. See for yourself.
Much as I'd love it, I doubt Samsung named the phone after Terry. Instead, it's the fact that the Hennessy phone is a clamshell that makes this such eye-poping news.
In mobile, you can try all sorts of things. Your directors can embezzle and go on the run, you can launch a PR stunt that ends in dozens injured. But the one thing you must never NEVER do is make a clamshell phone.
It's just so 2005. Like bull bars or Steve Brookstein.
Clamshells take us back to a time before the iPhone and the Galaxy, before what has become known as the slab-opoly.
Younger readers will be getting fed up by now, muttering "get on with it Granddad, and tell us what the **** a clamshell actually is."
Well, for those of us who were fully pubic in the early noughties, clamshells were very daring. Quite the thing, oh yes.
And Samsung was all over the space like a limpet (sorry, I'm overcooking the crustacean allusions aren't I?).
Actually, Motorola was the first to realise that a phone that opened and closed had big advantages over the competition. It launched the StarTac in 1996 at the very reasonable price of $1000. People loved the fact that no buttons were needed for the essentials.
Take a call? Just open it. End a call? Snap it shut.
By the early noughties nearly all OEMs were making dozens of what had now become known as flip phones. They sold well, but it was Motorola that set the standard. Its Razr series shifted an amazing 130m in four years from 2004.
In fact, only Nokia resisted the lure of the flip – and took a barrage of stick in the process. In the end, Nokia's obstinacy was vindicated. it did launch a handful of clamshells, but by then everyone had moved on to sliders. And it had the daddy of them all in the N95.
We all know what happened next. iPhone blah blah blah.But clamshells didn't completely disappear.
Although there was a moment when flippers tried to be smartphones (Nokia N76, BlackBerry Pearl), the destiny of the clamshell was to be the form factor for 'les miserables'.
Today, the only customers for the Samsung Mantra and the Doro Phone Easy are the elderly, the infirm and the tragically unhip.
Which is what makes Samsung's move so amazing.
Reports say the Samsung SCH-W789 Hennessy is a proper smartphone, running Jelly Bean, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM.
Can it ever take its place among the sleek glass slabs that dominate the handset market today?
Probably not. The clamshell has been tainted by the uncool brush and I believe it's unlikely this phone make it outside Asia Pac.
But I'm sure there must be iPhone users out there who'd secretly fancy a phone they could answer with gloves on. And who long for the dramatic flourish only a flip can provide.
Here are two scenarios...
Hennessy user to angry girlfriend: "I may be in the gutter, darling, but I am staring up at the stars…" (snaps phone shut within stylish flick of the wrist)
iPhone user to angry girlfriend: "I may be drunk, darling, but you are ugly. And I will be sober in the morning…" (presses wrong button)
Girlfriend: "….Keith, are you still there?"
Keith (looking for reading glasses): "Yes, er pressed the speaker icon…"
Girlfriend: "What was that about ugly? I didn't quite catch it."
Keith (has now accidentally launched camera on his iPhone): "I was quoting Churchill."
Girlfriend: "The insurance dog? What's he got to do with it"
And so on.
Maybe it's still too early for a fully-fledged flip return. But I hope OEMs can find some way of re-invigorating the form factor.
After all, it seems to work very well for the MacBook and the George Foreman Grill. And the oyster, of course.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...is-back/022255