If there’s one thing that we’re crazy about, aside from concepts then that’s renders. Luckily I stumbled upon a fresh Nokia design, that supposedly belongs to the Lumia 601 handset. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Not so long ago Nokia published a developer-oriented video featuring a large display Windows Phone device, that was supposed to be the Nokia 900 Ace leaked handset. Since then this model has been removed, but in the meantime the image above appeared and people started talking about the Nokia Lumia 601 unit as the identity of this leak. It appears that the picture has a reliable source inside Nokia, so the phone’s name is a pretty sure thing.

If we’re to judge by the name, this model belongs to the lower end of the Nokia portofolio, so there aren’t many reasons to get excited here. This is Windows Phone after all, plus a design that doesn’t quite surprise or impress me. We have no specs to go with the image, but we spotted what looks like an 8 megapixel camera at the back of the smartphone. People who are familiar with design and saw this image say that it’s a clear case of Photoshop action. What do you think?

Nokia has been on a roll lately, showing us no less than 3 concepts, some of them showcased at Nokia World 2011. This is the third one actually, Nokia GEM, a device that prides itself with being a handset that was turned into an entire touchscreen. There’s also an interesting comic-book like video in the source link below, in case you want extra info.

Nokia GEM was launched to celebrate 25 years of existence of the Nokia Research Centre and this device is all about the touchscreen it incorporates on its front, back and sides. The back is also interactive, so you can pinch to zoom from the rear, without cluttering the front screen. This function also comes in handy when using maps and probably games too, as proved by the Sony PS Vita.

Senior Design Manager Jarkko Saunamäki is the one who lead the team that created GEM and recently claimed that once you launch an app, for example the camera application, the entire phone will begin to look like a camera. How? Well, there’s an entire image wrapped around the phone, since it’s a whole touchscreen after all. The coolest thing about this device is that it also allows people to carry advertising on the back of the handset when making calls, so they would get a discount on bills. How cool is that? 3D images viewed from all angles are also supported!

We’ve been hearing a lot about Nokia flexible phones lately, with a prototype being even demoed at Nokia World 2011. This may be no Nokia Morph, but it’s surely interesting enough to make us think about the future. And now there’s a new project called the HumanForm, that looks like the pics you see below.

Created by Nokia Design and Nokia Research Center, HumanForm is all about flexibility and bendable phones. The result is a touchscreen device that looks like a thermometer or a feminine accessory, that seems to only fit a vertical row of icons on its small display. The device allows physical manipulation and nanotechnology allows data to float on the screen like liquid.

Thus a flow of social networking info is created and you must know that the entire case of the HumanForm device is a touchscreen, while flexing the handset is also a means of control. Bend to zoom is supported for example, as shown in the video in our source link. A small phone doesn’t necessarily mean small features, keep that in mind… Is this Nokia futuristic design the real future?

[via Yanko Design]

Nokia must be careful here not to make the same mistake it did when trying to enter the market of netbooks. The Nokia Booklet 3G failed miserably because of the price and I really can’t see a solid reason for its purchase. Since Nokia is all about Microsoft these days, why wouldn’t they also join hands in the tablet field?

I know that MS has been trying long and hard to come up with an iPad rival… Thus, now that the Steve Jobs official biography revealed that the iPad was in fact an idea started to tease Microsoft, the Redmond giant has all the reasons to retaliate and the hardware coming from Nokia to be able to do so. Do you give a Nokia Win 8 tablet any chance of survival?

This is the prototype Nokia Kinetic Device, that supports display flexing on the vertical and horizontal axis. You can bend and twist the screen to control the interface, for example bending the display to yourself in order to select stuff or zoom in on pictures. If you’re listening to music you can use the tactile area to navigate, stop or play a song.

There’s still a long way to go till mass production, but at least there’s a prototype to build upon. The curios thing here is that Nokia was shy of detailing the screen technology, so this could mean it’s not the flexible AMOLED we’ve seen on Samsung and Sony’s side for a while now. The viewing angles are also pretty good when it comes to the Nokia flexible concept phone.