Now here’s something we don’t see every day. Rockchip Microelectronics had a rather interesting phone at their booth at IFA last week. It looks like a deskphone with a rather large display, and the display is oversized because the phone’s running Android.
That’s a touchscreen display, there’s a front-facing camera, and the phone can run over 3G as well as connect to landline service. There’s music, video, and photos at your fingertips. There are stereo speakers in the grille under the touchscreen. Speakers plus front-facing camera equals… video calls.
Rockchip is an IC manufacturer, not a telephone maker, so this is not something they’re selling. The deskphone was at their booth to encourage actual phone manufacturers to buy their Android-ready chips (the RK2818) and build something cool like this.
I sure hope if someone builds an Android deskphone that they include a wired headset jack. Not much point in having that big touchscreen if you can’t play games while taking customer support calls.