Forget titanium, lets have wooden mobiles

There is a man in Russia who builds new cases for mobile phones from apple tree
wood. He fully disassembles new handsets and carves an individual wooden case for each device, giving them unique little touches.

Each small part gets its own wooden case – the antenna, the sim-card, the battery. The SIM card is given a tiny wooden box of its own. The antenna is also inserted into a wooden sleeve.

It makes a change from all that steel, chrome and titanium – although as time wore on and it got dropped, bashed and generally abused through everyday use, there might be a danger of splinters…

In a world where the choice of mobile is bewildering and the land-fill needed to cope gets ever larger, it turns out wooden phones are nothing new. Hulger launched a wooden phone made out of African Ziricote hardwood which, to be fair, is virtually indestructible. It would be immune to the usual handset accidents that happen from time to time.

While mine is more likely to include being dropped on to a concrete surface from pocket height, the Hulger phone is resistant to fire (within reason), a 15-metre drop or having two tons of rock on top of the device (how do they know?).

The Hulger Wooden phone (right) is, like its Russian counterpart, intended to appeal for its looks rather than its ruggedness. Oh, it costs £3,885. Sitting on the same high-price shelf the Mobiado range in ebony (with ultra-light titanium buttons and the like) – a snip at around £1,500.

Wood can be waxed, polished and gives us a unique tactile experience: tough, smooth and, above all, natural. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG – let’s have more!

Written by: Nicola Pringle for Mobiles Please.