Paperphone: Smartphone Killer or Useless Device?

Paperphone is the new, innovative product from the researchers at Queen's University, Canada. The phone is as thin as a sheet of paper and it is made of a bendable plastic material. As awesome and cutting edge as this might sound, the world may not be ready for paperphone - at least not yet. If you ask me, I'd say it is way too early to predict that paperphone is a potential smartphone killer.

Let's break it down here. The paperphone is as thin as a piece of paper with a screen display of about 3.75-inches. You can do just about anything on this phone. Like a smartphone, it can make calls, send text messages, and play video files. Bend it as you like, it won't break.

Although the paperphone technology will help us create smaller and thinner smartphones, I currently don't know of anyone who would opt for a paperphone in lieu of an iPhone or even a good Nokia phone.

Paperphone: The bad

With a phone as thin as a piece of paper, there is no room for any type of peripheral connections or slots such as USB, a headphone jack, or even a SIM card. This can be a deal breaker for a lot of smartphone users. Another major disadvantage is that the screen colors and resolution are nowhere near the quality of an Android or iPhone smartphone. This makes watching videos and looking at pictures much less enjoyable than other smartphones.

I must give the researchers some credit though. The technology is breath-taking. The phone is made of a thin plastic material you can bend without qualms. In fact, it is almost unbreakable. The battery life for the phone should also be very good based on the technology it is using for the screen and hardware.

Other Paper Thin Devices

The researchers are also working on bendable video game screens and a full bendable PC. One of the objectives of the Queen's Human Media Lab is to come up with bendable screen products that would conveniently replace present day office essentials like paper and whatnot.

The paperphone might help spur the world's first interactive paper computer, however, it remains to be seen how this paper computer will be received by the market with no internal battery. Presently, the computer version of paperphone relies on an external power supply. It needs a battery. The technology world will want this device to be mobile. It is tough to create a bendable battery and that's the challenge the researchers are experiencing.

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-By Dominic

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