The dTOOR Cyrcle Phone, with an Open Source Housing, Looks to Smooth the Smartphone's Edges
Featuring a 3D-printable open source case, this unusual Android handset evokes some of Nokia's more adventuresome designs.
Smartphone startup dTOOR is aiming to break out from the monotony of rectangular handsets, launching a crowdfunding campaign for an unusual oval handset built around a circular display.
The progression of basic cellular phones to featurephones brought with it a range of unusual form factors, including Nokia's phone-cum-handheld games console N-Gage and its even more unusual teardrop-shaped 7600. The success of Apple's iPhone, while not the first smartphone to hit the market, put paid to that: Today, the vast majority of handsets are largely featureless, rectangular glass slabs.
Which is where dTOOR comes in, with its plan to launch an Android smartphone built around an unusual circular display. Founded by Christina Cyr, Wendy Wilson, and Debbie Liu, dTOOR launched the original Cyrcle back in 2016 — but is hoping to make a bigger splash with its reintroduction.
Built around a 3.45" circular display with an 800x800 resolution, the revised Cyrcle Phone 4G LTE runs Android 10 on an unspecified Qualcomm Snapdragon system-on-chip with 3GB of LPDDR3 memory and 32GB of eMMC storage. A 13 megapixel camera is provided on the front and the rear, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 Low Energy, and GNSS connectivity support — along with near-field communication (NFC), missing from a prototype design it unveiled last year.
A key feature of the Cyrcle Phone is its enclosure, surrounding the unusual display, which is the work of Wesley Millora. As well as producing the case from compostable, corn-based PLA and recycled TPU, dTOOR aims to stand out still further by providing 3D-printable STL files under an open source license — allowing users to customize and print their own cases.
Elsewhere inside the case are a pair of USB connectors, USB 3.0 Type-C and USB 2.0 Micro-B, a nine-degrees-of-freedom inertial measurement unit (IMU) with accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer, and a temperature sensor, along with speakers, microphone, and dual 3.5mm headphone jacks. Memory expansion is available on a micro-SD slot, and the whole device is powered by a removable 2Ah lithium-polymer battery.
Pricing, however, could be a concern. Despite its modest specifications, the Cyrcle Phone is being positioned at the higher end of the market with a $999 retail price. For those willing to back the project ahead of production, though, the price is reduced to $699 — and those interested can pledge on Kickstarter now, in the hope of receiving the hardware by September next year.