Sweden-based Symetium has been working for the past three years to develop a smartphone with high-end specs that can also act as a PC when docked. The company launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise $1.25 million so it can bring this phone to market.
The idea is not too dissimilar from what Canonical was trying to do before with a similar project, although the Symetium smartphone is based completely on Android rather than a mix of Android on the phone and Ubuntu on the desktop.
The phone itself reminds us a little about Canonical's Edge smartphone, too, with its sharper design language. The Ubuntu Edge also appeared in an IndieGoGo campaign, but Symetium seems to be asking for much less money to turn this product into a reality.
The main idea behind the Symetium smartphone and its operating system is that smartphones should work more like PCs, and they should enable that higher level of productivity for everyone. The way Symetium wants to achieve that is by enabling the smartphone to connect to one or multiple screens simultaneously.
The UI wouldn't be mirrored but would instead create a new interface on that larger screen, optimized for that form factor, while also allowing people to continue using their smartphones without interruption as well.
Once in the PC mode, the Symetium smartphone can also turn into a mouse and keyboard combination when no such accessories are available.
“With Symetium, I want to go past mobile operating systems and join the two together. It is time for phones to stop being phones as they are much more than that and have been for years," said Jonathan Gustafsson, the founder of the company.
The device will run a customized operating system based on Android Marshmallow. It will come with a high-end Snapdragon 820 and as much as 6 GB of RAM to make it more "PC-like," which could prove useful in the desktop mode if you open many browser tabs at once, for instance.
The Symetium smartphone will come with up to 256 GB of storage as well, although those models will be significantly more expensive. The baseline will start at 64 GB of storage. The phone's battery will supposedly last "approximately three to four days," but it's not clear under what circumstances. Android M is supposed to double standby battery life, but it's unlikely to double the battery life under active usage. The phone's 4,000 mAh battery as well as the 1080p resolution OLED screen should also help in extending the battery life of the device.
The Symetium IndieGoGo campaign currently offers the smartphone starting at $499 for the 64 GB version, but only for a limited number of customers, in a first come first served order. The device's normal price seems to be $699 for the 64 GB model, $799 for the 128 GB one, and $999 for the 256 GB variant. The device is expected to ship in July 2016.
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