[Concept] Windows Phone 7 Chrome HD

paperclips · Aug 10, 2010

Featured On:

http://pocketnow.com/windows-phone/another-sleek-windows-phone-7-prototype

http://www.1800pocketpc.com/2010/08/12/windows-phone-7-by-paperclips-fan-made-concept.html

http://www.techit.in/windows-phone-7-chrome-edition-concept/

Windows Phone 7 is shaping up to be my future platform for development but that doesn't mean I think it's perfect. Many people believe that METRO UI is too flat and while I disagree, it would be nice to have some more variety out there. With this concept, I shaped a more Chrome version of METRO UI featuring gradients, shadows, etc. This is a concept only as I have not contacted, nor heard from any manufacturers. If I decide to contact anyone, most likely ASUS, LG, or Toshiba, I will let everyone know. Name for this concept is Chrome HD for its HD resolution, camera, and HDMI output. Black version update coming later today.

Chrome HD by PAP3RCLIPS, on Flickr

Black Version (30 Second alteration.)

Black WP7 by PAP3RCLIPS, on Flickr

FAQ:

Q: What is the frame made out of?
A: Most of the phone would be made out of brushed metal.

Q: What is that blue shining light?
A: That is a notification light.

Q: What is that metal strap on the back of the phone?
A: A Kickstand

Q: What is the black hole on the back of the device?
A: Another microphone for noise cancellation.

Q: What are the holes on the bottom of the device?
A: HDMI and mini USB.

Q: What is the button near the bottom on the right side of the device?
A: That is a camera button.

Q: What was your inspiration for this concept?
A: A combination of the new Asus Windows Phone, the Nexus One, Zune HD, and the iPhone 4. Camera is based on some found in the Nokia N series.

Q: Are those physical and capacitive buttons?
A: No, the glyphs are there for indications of what each button above it does. Styling was based off of Zune HD and Xperia X10's buttons.

Q: What's with the unnecessarily high resolution?
A: It's pretty much just to match the iPhone Retina display. I was under the impression that you could go beyond the minimum hardware requirements with anything.

Q: Where is the power button?
A: On the left side above the volume buttons.

orb3000 · Aug 10, 2010

Thanks for this!
It looks really nice

the-hq · Aug 10, 2010

Done quite well.

I like that your changes are more subtle than the other design we have seen here.

MonteCristoffOn · Aug 10, 2010

Somptuous!

Finally someone who understand WP7 philosophy!

Excellent work paperclips, your device is really somptuous.

Iridox · Aug 10, 2010

This looks like an iPhone-esque clone with WP7 on it to me... meh.

irdawood · Aug 10, 2010

paperclips said:
Kind of got inspired with the Sense 3 render to do my own. This is actually my first try at a phone render since I'm mostly just a designer for web and advertisements but I think it came out pretty decent. This is not only a hardware concept, but a WP7 OS redesign. Check out the "would be" specs under the original concept.

Windows Phone by PAP3RCLIPS, on Flickr

Black Version (30 Second alteration.)

Black WP7 by PAP3RCLIPS, on Flickr

FAQ:

Q: What is the frame made out of?
A: Most of the phone would be made out of brushed metal.

Q: What is that blue shining light?
A: That is a notification light.

Q: What is that metal strap on the back of the phone?
A: A Kickstand

Q: What is the black hole on the back of the device?
A: Another microphone for noise cancellation.

Q: What are the holes on the bottom of the device?
A: HDMI and mini USB.

Q: What is the button near the bottom on the right side of the device?
A: That is a camera button.

Q: What was your inspiration for this concept?
A: A combination of the new Asus Windows Phone, the Nexus One, Zune HD, and the iPhone 4. Camera is based on some found in the Nokia N series.

Okay I know its a concept and such, however I would like to critique your work if i may

not too many points but just a few observations I saw whilst looking at the design.

1) You used capacitive buttons (not a problem most, lots of phones have them however you will also find most people prefer real buttons as opposed to the capacitive type. (though you did leave a bezel /dead point where it would be harder to accidently touch the capacitive buttons)

2) The screen on the device is edge to edge, though this looks fantastic you will find it is very hard to a) implement this in real life; screens needs a small 'perimeter', b) as the phone is small and sleek most peoples 'man hands' would dwarf the phone (not a problem) but becomes a problem when your holding the phone and also activating elements on the capacitive touch screen with your abductor pollicis bravis muscle, hence why on most phone you will see normally a 1mm perimeter around the phone screen.

3) for the same reason the camera button needs to be a few mm higher too, if you grip it tightly you will also be activating the camera, remember this is a WP7, where the camera can be activated even in standby.

4) I dont understand the reason why you have taken the speaker so high up on the bezel, in your design your have the screen, then your have a small space where the LED is and then you have the bezel, other than a space constraint why would you take the speaker so high up? it should be in line with the LED.

5) the volume buttons also i believe are a bit small, think how small your phone is and then compare this to your buttons; they are minuscule and need to be larger. Last thing you want to be doing whilst on a call is looking for buttons for volume control

Anyways there are a few more gripes but otherwise its a fantastic design and cant imagine the effort it must have took to produce it, well done!

vangrieg · Aug 10, 2010

irdawood said:
cant imagine the effort it must have took to produce it, well done!

Which brings me to the question that bugs me: why do people do these things?

paperclips · Aug 10, 2010

Thanks for your advice, I'll try to answer theses qualms for the most part and implement them while I'm at home.

1. Yah, I thought about that. I'm still thinking of what kind of buttons would look nice enough to not ruin the design.

2. This was purely for aesthetics as you noticed. I'll add a strip of metal to the side when I'm home later.

3. Will work on this.

4. Speaker alignment is something I got off my Droid incredible. I might change up the margins a bit later.

5. True, this will be an easy fix when I get home.

I'll include a few more minor updates on the concept later today. Thanks for the advice.

irdawood said:
Okay I know its a concept and such, however I would like to critique your work if i may not too many points but just a few observations I saw whilst looking at the design.

1) You used capacitive buttons (not a problem most, lots of phones have them however you will also find most people prefer real buttons as opposed to the capacitive type. (though you did leave a bezel /dead point where it would be harder to accidently touch the capacitive buttons)

2) The screen on the device is edge to edge, though this looks fantastic you will find it is very hard to a) implement this in real life; screens needs a small 'perimeter', b) as the phone is small and sleek most peoples 'man hands' would dwarf the phone (not a problem) but becomes a problem when your holding the phone and also activating elements on the capacitive touch screen with your abductor pollicis bravis muscle, hence why on most phone you will see normally a 1mm perimeter around the phone screen.

3) for the same reason the camera button needs to be a few mm higher too, if you grip it tightly you will also be activating the camera, remember this is a WP7, where the camera can be activated even in standby.

4) I dont understand the reason why you have taken the speaker so high up on the bezel, in your design your have the screen, then your have a small space where the LED is and then you have the bezel, other than a space constraint why would you take the speaker so high up? it should be in line with the LED.

5) the volume buttons also i believe are a bit small, think how small your phone is and then compare this to your buttons; they are minuscule and need to be larger. Last thing you want to be doing whilst on a call is looking for buttons for volume control

Anyways there are a few more gripes but otherwise its a fantastic design and cant imagine the effort it must have took to produce it, well done!

Really? I thought of all my inspirations, that was the one it looked the least like.

Iridox said:
This looks like an iPhone-esque clone with WP7 on it to me... meh.

I do it for the same reason I do most of my art. Which is to get my ideas down on paper/computer. I always wanted to design hardware and thought I might as well give it a shot while I'm off.

vangrieg said:
Which brings me to the question that bugs me: why do people do these things?

paperclips · Aug 11, 2010

Updated with physical buttons, smaller top, bigger volume buttons, repositioned camera button, new flash image, and increased the width.

nicc51591 · Aug 11, 2010

Looks sexy, I would buy it

I didn't see the first one but I'm sure it looked almost as nice.

paperclips · Aug 11, 2010

nicc51591 said:
Looks sexy, I would buy it

I didn't see the first one but I'm sure it looked almost as nice.

Here's a link if you want to see it: http://pap3rclips.deviantart.com/#/d2w11za

vangrieg · Aug 11, 2010

paperclips said:
Title changed. This is named Chrome because Metro UI is supposed to be "chromeless", whereas this isn't.

I don't see a major difference in this area. As far as I understand, "chromeless" is when you don't try to present controls as entities separate from the rest of the content. An ultimate example of this would be a hyperlink on a web page, where a control element is only slightly different from the surrounding text (different color, underlining), as opposed to a button, which may be drawn to imitate a real physical button, which would be chrome.

WP7 isn't all chromeless, by the way, and it would really be useful, I think, if somebody tried to create some controls such as buttons, which would fit the design paradigm of WP7 in not trying to be pseudo-real, but be better than just a 3px border around text with variable width...

Overall, I don't see how your design contradicts Metro principles at all. They don't use gradients, true, but these don't create chrome and quite fit into the "authentically digital" doctrine.

paperclips · Aug 11, 2010

vangrieg said:
I don't see a major difference in this area. As far as I understand, "chromeless" is when you don't try to present controls as entities separate from the rest of the content. An ultimate example of this would be a hyperlink on a web page, where a control element is only slightly different from the surrounding text (different color, underlining), as opposed to a button, which may be drawn to imitate a real physical button, which would be chrome.

WP7 isn't all chromeless, by the way, and it would really be useful, I think, if somebody tried to create some controls such as buttons, which would fit the design paradigm of WP7 in not trying to be pseudo-real, but be better than just a 3px border around text with variable width...

Overall, I don't see how your design contradicts Metro principles at all. They don't use gradients, true, but these don't create chrome and quite fit into the "authentically digital" doctrine.

Chrome such as in the use of drop shadows on the tiles. I can't illustrate more because I'm pretty lazy right now. Basically, the main thing I would change is have artificial textures and shadows throughout the interface. Not a drastic change, but doesn't really fit the all digital philosophy. If you see it as not contradicting metro than that's a plus.

doministry · Aug 11, 2010

This looks really nice, this Chrome Metro.

Changes completely the feel from these flat, bad colours squares
to something more classy and nice.

Interesting if something like that will be available.

havox22 · Aug 11, 2010

Best concept ive seen for wp7, im really digging the white tiles...Great job

DMAND · Aug 11, 2010

Definitely the best concept posted here so far that I've seen, very clean!

_LeCiel_ · Aug 11, 2010

OS-wise I saw nothing original in the previous version 'cause for me it was just the default black/blue Metro-look with some gradiant but now I must say I'm really impressed with the new improved design.

The phone itself looks very solid and modern and it fits your B&W Metro UI extremely well. Of course there are some things that could be improved but hey - it's just a concept and since you're more of an advertisement designer you really made a great job. Microsoft and HTC should really see this. It's not as over-the-top as my Sense 3 and a bit of gradiant here and there really makes Metro look a lot better. If you could only add your own wallpaper I would even consider buying this device (and believe me that's a huge complement

).

You should send it to HTC. Shubert's still in development so HTC may be interested in your concept.

gom99 · Aug 11, 2010

Very nice, I like the tile work. The black text on light tile is even more readable than their white text on colored. I like the subtle use of shadowing on the tile as well. It really stands out while maintaining the simple yet elegant look.

The phone design itself looks nice...but one thing that I could see coming up is that the size of the capacitive buttons look rather small. I'm generally not a fan of capacitive buttons anyway, but that's a personal issue and not a functional one.

cPT.cAPSLOCK · Aug 11, 2010

It looks pretty cool.

Having dark text on the light tiles looks awesome, though unfortunately that's impossible: Dark background -> light text on the tiles.

havox22 · Aug 11, 2010

You made pocketnow

http://pocketnow.com/windows-phone/another-sleek-windows-phone-7-prototype

[Concept] Windows Phone 7 Chrome HD

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