Bar A
bar (also known as a slab, block, candybar) phone takes the shape of a
cuboid, usually with rounded corners and/or edges. The name is derived from the rough resemblance to a
chocolate bar in size and shape. This form factor is widely used by a variety of manufacturers, such as
Nokia and
Sony Ericsson. Bar-type smartphones commonly have the screen and keypad on a single face. Sony had a well-known '
Mars Bar' phone model CM-H333 in 1993 that was longer and thinner than the typical bar phone. Bar phones without a full keyboard tend to have a 3×4 numerical keypad; text is often generated on such systems using the
Text on 9 keys algorithm.
Keyboard bars These are variants of bars that have a full
QWERTY keyboard on the front. While they are technically the same as a regular bar phone, the keyboard and all the buttons make them look significantly different. Devices like these were popular in the mid to late 2000s, but lost popularity afterward. The
BlackBerry line from
Research In Motion (RIM) was particularly popular and influential in this category. The
Unihertz Titan series is a series of QWERTY bar phones with modern Android software, produced in the 2020s.
Brick "
Brick" is a slang term used to refer to large, outdated rectangular phones, typically early devices with large batteries and electronics. These early phones, such as the
Motorola DynaTAC, have been displaced by newer smaller models which offer greater portability thanks to smaller antennas and slimmer battery packs. However, "brick" has more recently been applied to older phone models in general, including non-bar form factors (flip, slider, swivel, etc.), and even early touchscreen phones as well, due to their size and relative lack of functionality compared to current models on the market. The term "brick" has also expanded beyond smartphones to include most
non-working consumer electronics, including a
game console,
router, or other device, that, due to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted
firmware, or a
hardware problem, can no longer function, hence, is as technologically useful as a
brick. The term derives from the vaguely
cuboid shape of many electronic devices (and their
detachable power supplies) and the suggestion that the device can function only as a lifeless, square object,
paperweight or doorstop. This term is commonly used as a verb. For example, "I bricked my
MP3 player when I tried to modify its
firmware." It can also be used as a noun, for example, "If it's corrupted and you apply using
fastboot, your device is a brick." In the common usage of the term, "bricking" suggests that the damage is so serious as to have rendered the device permanently unusable.
Slate A
slate is a
smartphone form with few to no physical buttons, instead relying upon a
touchscreen and an onscreen
virtual keyboard for input. The first commercially available touchscreen phone was a brick phone, the
IBM Simon Personal Communicator, released in 1994. The success of the
iPhone, which was released by
Apple in 2007, is considered by some to be largely responsible for the influence and achievement of this design. Some unusual "slate" designs include that of
LG New Chocolate (BL40), or the
Samsung Galaxy Round, which is curved.
Phablet The
phablet is a subset of the slate/touchscreen. A
portmanteau of the words
phone and
tablet, phablets are a class of mobile device designed to combine or straddle the size of a slate smartphone together with a tablet. Phablets typically have screens that measure (diagonally) greater than 5.3 inches, and are considerably larger than most high-end slate smartphones of the time (i.e. the
Samsung Galaxy Note II smartlet versus the
Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone), which have to be 5.2 inches or less to be known as a smartphone, though significantly smaller than tablets (which must be 7 inches or above to be considered as such).
Multi-screen The
multi-screen is of basically the slate form factor, but with two touchscreens. Some have a small separate screen above the main screens, the
LG V10 and LG V20. Other multi-screen form factors has screens on both sides of the phone. In the case of
Yotaphone and
Siam 7X, they have normal touchscreens on the front, but on the backside is an
e-ink screen, which enables using the cases in a fashion similar to reading a book. The presence of the front camera for taking selfies has been an essential feature in smartphones; however, it is difficult to achieve a bezelless screen, as was the trend in the later 2010s. The
Nubia X, Nubia Z20 and
Vivo NEX Dual Display have solved this, combining the use of the main camera and a smaller second rear screen, eliminating the front camera.
Wrapped-around display Xiaomi revealed
Mi MIX Alpha, a smartphone with a display that surrounds almost entirely its body, only interrupted in the back part by a column that contains the cameras. Back part of display can be used as viewfinder for selfies and videocalls.
Taco The
taco form factor was popularized by the
Nokia N-Gage, released in 2003 as a combination phone and game console. It was widely known as the plastic
taco for its "D" shape, with speaker placement that required holding it awkwardly on edge against the face. Other models include
Nokia 3300 and
Nokia 5510. {{Gallery|align=center|File:Nokia-NGage-QD.jpg|
N-Gage QD Wearables Smartwatch A smartphone in the form of a
wristwatch is typically referred to as a
smartwatch. ==With movable sections==