With 3D technology starting to invade home cinema systems everywhere, it was only a matter of time until 3D smart phones began crawling out of the woodwork – after a Sharp 3D phone prototype was recently spotted in the wild at the IFA 2010 consumer electronics show.
Apparently the 3D prototype has a 10-inch 3D LCD screen and two cameras to shoot 3D footage with 3D TV output also available via HDMI. Sharp have already supplied glasses-free 3D screens to Nintendo for their DS handheld successor, the Nintendo 3DS, and now the Japanese electronics giants are also apparently planning to launch a 3D phone before the end of the year.
In Japan, 3D phones have been widely available as early as 2009, though Sharp, the country’s biggest mobile phone maker, have yet to enter the burgeoning arena of 3D phones themselves. However, the company’s LCD manager Yoshisuke Hasegawa has iterated his desire for all of Sharp’s next generation of mobiles to be equipped with 3D screens. Apparently Sharp have been experimenting with 3D product development as far back as 2002, though early attemps were marred with poor brightness, colour-draining and fuzzy picture resolution.
Unfortunately for the company, their earlier venture into the 3D market, the Kin model, flopped in the US despite being manufactured by Microsoft, with a hefty ad campaign to boot. The Kin was cancelled after just three months on sale in the US though in fairness, it was also pretty ugly.
But why would anyone want a 3D phone in the first place? Surely with smart phones with touchscreen interfaces would become bothersome in 3D, unless they employed dual screens, much like the aforemtnioned 3DS?
It will be interesting to see whether the new Sharp handset is a touchscreen phone, as fingerprints on a 3D screen would no doubt diminish the desired effect. For the 3DS, much like previous consoles, the upper screen on the is 3D and the lower screen is used as a 2D touchscreen.
Either way, we can’t help but be excited at the prospect glasses-free 3D technology in our hands, particularly since Sharp’s method will apparently be arriving on our shores before the end of the year and can provide a powerful respite to the dozens of ‘me too’ touchscreens clogging the shelves.
If the latest Sharp model lands on time for its international launch at the end of the year it should easily pre-empt the hype and dazzle of the March 2011-expected release of Nintendo’s 3DS and become a huge stocking filler come Christmas. Whether 3D technology and its unique interface demands are the future of mobile technology remains to be seen, but we wouldn’t mind having an alternative.
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