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Here at RCR we’ve known about Modu’s Android intentions for a little while now, but were sworn to secrecy. Now, however, as a leaked video of an Android Modu T (Modu 2) phone has tipped up on YouTube, we can remain silent no longer.
Boasting a squarish touch screen and running a rather antiquated version of Google’s mobile software (Android 1.5 or 1.6), Phandroid claims the tiny Modu phone currently lacks 3G, relying solely on Wi-Fi, although we’re 99% sure 3G is in the works. How long it will take to come out of “the works,” however, is unclear and we doubt the phone will be much of a success without it as a feature.
Features the little modular phone does have, however, are FM radio capabilities, a microSD card slot and a whole bunch of “jackets” including one with a QWERTY keyboard.
Modu, which was founded by Dov Moran – the inventor of the USB Flash Drive – in 2007 employees just 125 employees. Before founding the firm, the charismatic CEO had also founded msystems in 1989 which was later sold to SanDisk in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
The company’s first phone, the modu 1, was generally considered a bit of a flop, despite its innovative concept and tiny size which won it a Guinness Book of records award for the world’s smallest lightest phone. It launched only in Israel, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, El-Salvador, he Philippines, Romania, Nigeria and online in Australia.
The idea of a modular phone able to slip into a number of different shaped and sized jackets was a good one in theory, but lagged behind technologically, something the firm hopes will change once its touch screen Android device emerges.
A major selling point, for the firm, is that its units make for sizable reductions in both cost and time to market for ODMs which simply want to slot cellular capability into a case of some shape or size.
For customers, Modu’s value proposition is being able to upgrade or change one’s phone functionality without having to buy a whole new device and without having to take out a whole new contract. Modu rather cheesily refers to this as the “democratization of mobile phone innovation.”
For more, why not check out our video interview Modu’s Dov Moran, who kindly spares us a few minutes of his time in between answering phone calls:
