Steampunk cellphone

This is one of the more fascinating ideas I have run across recently… A steampunk cellphone created by designer Arthur Schmitt. The basics are all there – earpiece at the top, mouthpiece at the bottom, and two gauges that I can only assume display battery and signal strength.

What about the keypad? Well, he did away with it in favor of a great geeky touch – in order to dial a number, you use one of the little punch cards shown in the second picture. Punch out the phone number, slip the card into the bottom of the phone, and away you go!

I can just imagine using one of these all the time… instead of scrolling through your phone list, you’d be flipping through a wallet of cards – each one could be different, as show in the picture. You could even punch the number out of a photo, or someone’s business card, as long as you got it down to the right size to fit into the phone.

Sure, it’s not really practical… large contact lists would require big rolodexes or the like, for one. But is such a novel, tactile spin on things that it is fun to consider.

Via MAKE, who found it on Unpluggd.