Typically concept phone/watch combinations are intriguing, but so far away from practicality or the limits of current technology that they are only worth a brief glance. Then there are those things that actually look as though they could work with what we have today. This is why I am excited about the Triple Phone Watch concept.

In a nutshell, the device is a folding phone that fits on a wrist strap. When the phone is folded, a smaller anterior screen displays the time. To use the phone, the wear slips out the phone and unfolds it. A concern immediately appears, but I think is easily dismissed. You can surmise that because the phone separates from the wrist strap, they can easily become lost from one another. However, mobile phones aren’t typically latched to anything anyways, so these phones could be just as easy to lose as any other. Second, if you lost the wrist strap, it doesn’t look like something that would be too expensive to replace anyway. Thus, I don’t think there is too much of a risk of loss, and there must be some way of securing the phone into the wrist strap harness. No big deal there.

The phone unit itself is what is of most interest. The watch part of it is pretty simple, but the design has been proven a few times. You have no seconds, just the hour and minute, which are stacked on top of one another. Mod watches companies such as (now deceased) Ventura, and others, have proven this to not only be attractive, but also highly legible. Not for those of us who demand an analog watch, but there is a time and a place for watches like this. The folding design of the phone makes a lot of sense. We have passed the point where we can make tinny little phones. The two things stopping us from making phones smaller is the fact that a human needs to comfortably use it, and the fact that it needs a battery. Sure this Triple phone will need to be charged daily, but so do most phones.

Taking generously from popular phone designs from Motorola (RAZR), and Sanyo, among others, the Triple CellPhone watch is a nice amalgamation of some of today (and yesterday’s) best phone design from an aesthetic standpoint. Usability does not look hampered by its design, and it is up to the software and people to make it function properly. I would say that the Triple Watch CellPhone (yes I keep mixing up the name because it is written in several ways in several places, and is not a true “cell” phone) is perfectly usable and comfortable from an ergonomics standpoint.

There really isn’t too much more to say while the phone is in concept phase. As I mentioned before, we totally have the ability to produce this phone, and the fact that the designer, Manon Maneenawa was given an award of $10,000 for the design (even if he was a fashion designer) must mean that some people are more than simply interested in producing this interesting phone and timepiece.

See Watch phones on eBay here.

See watches phones on Amazon here. [phpbay]watch phone, 6, “”, “”[/phpbay]