We’ve just uncovered a brilliant patent from Sony, involving a device that offers both a sliding area with gaming controls and another sliding area with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Sony usually thinks devices through a long while before launching them and this may also be the case.
This dual sliding device was found at the USPTO, the patent authority that granted the trademark to Sony for this new design. The idea here is to have a primary sliding system and a second one to slide along as well. You’ll push back the sliding part you don’t need, if you only want to use the gamepad or the keyboard, for example. We’re expecting the resulting device to be really thick, but in the end it’s still a progress to a more complete product. The design shown here reminds me of the Motorola Milestone a bit.
I sure hope that the Xperia Play will brings us something like this, since the first model was definitely a letdown. Would you buy such a gaming phone that you want to play games that pay real money on with the risk of it being too bulky? I’m hoping for a quad core CPU and 720p screen here, at least…
