LAS VEGAS—Remember the Nokia Communicator? The pre-iPhone, clamshell smartphone looked like a thick bar phone when it was closed, opening into a sort of mini-laptop with a full keyboard and a wide screen. Well, that form factor is back, thanks to retro handheld maker Planet. It's called the Cosmo, and it runs Android 9.
The Cosmo we saw here at CES is a prototype. It follows on from Planet's Gemini, which we saw at CES last year. The Gemini evoked the Psion Series 5; the Cosmo is specced-up and has a fully usable 2-inch, 570-by-240 external touch screen, thus the Communicator reference. It runs a customized version of Android on a MediaTek P70 processor.
I got to play with the Cosmo prototype a bit, and yeah, it brought back feelings. You can scroll through your address book on the external screen and make calls, holding the 11.2-ounce phone up to your head like a baseball-bat phone of old. Yes, it's kind of awkward. Yes, it's kind of great. It really depends on how retro you want to be.
Fold the device open, and the hinge sort of bulges out to become a stand. Inside, the 6-inch wide, 2,160-by-1,080 screen sits above a keyboard that has real travel, although on my prototype unit it felt kind of rattly. It was a prototype, after all. The keyboard was just a little bit too wide for my two thumbs, but I have small hands. I wanted to set the gadget down on a table to really get to typing.
There are two USB-C ports for peripherals and two SIMs—one physical, one eSIM. Other specs include a 24-megapixel camera, fingerprint sensor, and NFC. There are 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. A few more details that crop up on the Cosmo's Indiegogo page. Planet wants to offer the handheld with Linux and Sailfish OS options, although the prototype we saw only ran Android.
The Cosmo isn't coming out until the middle of the year, and it will cost $799. It's expensive and very strange. It's also a little wonderful, in that it's unlike anything else out there.
We will absolutely review the Cosmo when we can get our hands on it.