Panasonic’s neat keyboard trick for the rotating screen P-01A phone

My enthusiasm for Japanese phones is considerable but the attention to detail showed by DoCoMo’s Panasonic P-01A phone really is delightful.

The design brief was obvious. The P-01A’s screen usually operates in portrait mode, but when folded – with a touch of a button – it hinges from a new position, becoming a landscape screen for TV watching, game playing and web browsing etc. Only problem is the change of orientation means all the keypad buttons are now facing the wrong way.

What to do?

Well, the complicated solution would be to somehow rotate the keys. The actual solution however is to slide across another surface for the keys, leaving you with everything correctly orientated. Genius.

See the full sequence after the break

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