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Nokia World was all well and good with the new C6, C7 and E7 smart phones, but secretly we’ve always yearned for a phone that looked like the original Star Trek communicator. And guess what? Nokia actually designed some, TrekMovie.com reports.
Back in 2008, Nokia designed a mobile phone built to externally resemble the original Star Trek communicator from the first TV series. Nokia built 14 prototypes, which were based on the N76 clamshell flip phone. It’s not clear whether these were just for laughs, or whether those kerrayzee Finns were serious about bringing them out. A Trekkie and former Nokia employee bought one of the gadgets on eBay, and he was kind enough to share photos and a video of it.
Nokia’s Star Trek vommunicator doesn’t quite look as quaintly retro as the gadget from the original series, which you can buy from Forbidden Planet here. It looks more like a Motorola Razr, with an external metal antenna grille complete with yellow, red and blue lights underneath. There’s also a tiny etching of the Enterprise on the cover for the USB port.
It works just like an ordinary phone — orbital communication isn’t possible, sadly — with a pre-paid T-Mobile SIM card, but it chirps authentically when it’s flipped open, and comes loaded with Star Trek wallpapers and animations. As it was a prototype, there were a few problems, such as the grille being too heavy and buttons being too hard to press. But there are thousandds of Trekkies out there who would have bought it however janky it was.
Nokia connecting with famous movie franchises is nothing new. If you remember the first Matrix movie — the cool one before things went all stupid — Neo used an adapted Nokia 8110 banana phone with a spring-loaded slider. We also saw a N90, E61, 9300 and 770 tablet in the last Die Hard movie.
With the new E7’s design harking back to the days of the old Nokia Communicators, could we see Nokia bringing out a Matrix-style device to cater for the trenchcoat-wearing goth masses? We live in hope.
Image credit: Trekmovie.com
