It’s hard to stand out in the sea of smartphones that launch at Mobile World Congress (MWC) every year, but this year smartphone-manufacturer Yezz has managed to do just that without even building a new phone; its mockup modules provide a glimpse of what the much-talked about, and much delayed, Project Ara phone might look like.
For anyone hasn’t heard of it, Project Ara is Google’s modular smartphone: a metal frame with spaces for various modules, which clip onto the phone magnetically and provide the phone’s features.
Just like a desktop PC, the Project Ara system allows you to build your smartphone the way you want it, or easily upgrade it as you grow with the phone. Want a better camera, bigger battery, a faster processor or Wi-Fi? All you need to do is replace those modules instead of the whole phone.
We’ve already seen how Google envisages the phone will look from photos, but this is the first time we’ve seen Project Ara in the flesh, and although the mockups look very rough around the edges (some are just blocks with stickers applied), it’s exciting to finally clap eyes on what until now has seemed little more than a pipe dream.
Unfortunately, there are no indications yet as to how many of the modules Yezz was showing will eventually make it to market or prices, and we still have no firm date on Project Ara availability yet, either. But this very much puts flesh on the bones of the modular smartphone concept.
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