A lot of people are really anticipating the release of
modular handsets in the market. The biggest name that’s involved in the
development of such devices is of course Google with its Project
Ara that it snagged from Motorola. The first batch of Project Ara phones is
expected to be available by early 2015 but for those who are looking for more
options, the folks from Circular Devices might have something that could catch
your interest.
Called the PuzzlePhone, this handset offers the same modular
design as the one from Google but in a slightly different configuration. Unlike
Project Ara whose modules attach to the main body of the handset separately, components
of the PuzzlePhone are grouped into three: the Spine, the heart and the brain.
The Spine houses the LCD display, the speakers and the
device structure, the Heart contains the battery and other electronic parts
while the Brain is where you’ll find the processor and the camera. This system
is designed to allow users to easily swap parts whenever components get damaged
or become outdated.
The phone will run a forked version of Android created by
Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds. Moreover, the company will make the phone open
source in order to attract developers and manufacturers into building software
and hardware faster.
There’s no word yet on pricing and exact availability, but
the company plans to ship their first product sometime in 2015.
