The phone ecosystem these days is horribly boring compared to the innovation of a couple decades back. Your options include flat rectangles, and flat rectangles that fold in half and then break. [Marcin Plaza] wanted to think outside the slab, without reinventing the wheel. In an inspired bout of hacking, he flipped a broken Samsung zFlip 5 into a “new” phone.
There’s really nothing new in it; the guts all come from the donor phone. That screen? It’s the front screen that was on the top half of the zFlip, as you might have guessed from the cameras. Normally that screen is only used for notifications, but with the Samsung’s fancy folding OLED dead as Disco that needed to change. Luckily for [Marcin] Samsung has an app called Good Lock that already takes care of that. A little digging about in the menus is all it takes to get a launcher and apps on the small screen.
Because this is a modern phone, the whole thing is glued together, but that’s not important since [Marcin] is only keeping the screen and internals from the Samsung. The new case with its chunky four-bar linkage is a custom design fabbed out in CNC’d aluminum. (After a number of 3D Printed prototypes, of course. Rapid prototyping FTW!)
The bottom half of the slider contains a Blackberry Q10 keyboard, along with a battery and Magsafe connector. The Q10 keyboard is connected to a custom flex PCB with an Arduino Micro Pro that is moonlighting as a Human Input Device. Sure, that means the phone’s USB port is used by the keyboard, but this unit has wireless charging,so that’s not a great sacrifice. We particularly like the use of magnets to create a satisfying “snap” when the slider opens and closes.
Unfortunately, as much as we might love this concept, [Marcin] doesn’t feel the design is solid enough to share the files. While that’s disappointing, we can certainly relate to his desire to change it up in an era of endless flat rectangles. This project is a lot more work than just turning a broken phone into a server, but it also seems like a lot more fun.
I watched a few minutes of the video and was not impressed by the overall goofiness–too much effort on being cutesy.
I managed only 17 seconds. Some “flutes” and silly low res pictures.
I strongly agree with the premise. I do not believe that the optimal handheld device is a large featureless rectangle. I wish manufacturers would seek out other local maxima.
I love seeing hacks like this. The level of accessibility is low enough that most tinkerers could at least follow along and copy it, and probably even improve on it. There are lots of opportunities in this work to do even better, but that doesn’t make it any worse.
I’m impressed with the functionality of the end result, despite the kludges.
I agree in THEORY, but I’m also conscious of the fact that EVERY phone I’ve ever had with moving parts failed because of those parts. Every. Single. One. I’ve had flip phones that died because the hinges cracked, side-sliders that died because the ribbon cable for the keyboard side flexed itself in half… you name it.
A featureless rectangle may not be the optimal form-factor, but it does seem to be the most resilient in my experience. The very fact that this project started as a hack to revive a dead zFlip with a folding screen (moving parts!) only reinforces that.
(What’s taken out all of my phones WITHOUT moving parts? Battery swelling. 2/2, so far. Waiting to see, on the third. I’ve had it for 3 years now, and so far so good…)
I liked side-sliders. Sure, the ribbon might not last forever but it will last long enough. If it were made to be easily replaceable that would be no problem.
you can replace the batteries :)
The days of feature phones were awesome, so much choice in the market and some really fun designs out there, these days, it’s hard to get excited about the new iDroid 37SE with added AI slop because they’re essentially all the same boring device with no distinguishing features if you cover up the badge.
This hack is really fun.
Form factor reminds of the Motorola Flipout (2010) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Flipout
Suspect the Ardunio will consume more power, running the “usb” keyboard, than the Samsung in standby mode.
Very cool, mate and a fun presentation! 👏
Tablets are as old as the Bible and more. It is a great form factor well proven. What do you want rods, khipu, or fish? In grade school in 1964 I briefly saw the future of the phone having seen one of those Bell Telephone infotainment shorts at the movies. I speculate I saw my own phone in my left hand. For years I wondered what the vertical black rectangle I glimpsed was, just a blank balloon thought like in a comic strip? Come this century then eventually I knew what it was.
That phonenstien title got it wonrg
buncha old farts & negative nancies in the comments.
This is a cool hack with quite a bit going into it but at the same time, feels like something I could have a go at. Maybe Dongle-ify an old phone + hub built into the custom case + postmarketOS = streaming/media device or a more polished phone server.
None of those are new ideas but not everything has to be, it’s fun to just hack things together for the sake of it :)
That bit where he has the entire phone splayed out on the table without the frame? That was the “aha” moment for me.
I am guessing you went for a variation on Frankenstein.
Guess what? Stein is spelled stein (means ‘rock’ in German incidentally).
And it’s always pronounced as in Einstein and never as steen.
unfortunately, it is a again a youtube video in the youtubee style… unbearable.