Call us sports brand junkies, but there’s something about the new Puma Phone that’s got us as sweaty as a session on the cross-trainer. It’s not just the fashion phone fun we’re all het up over, but the smart touches which truly set this apart from any sporty cell that’s ever come before. Jump in and we’ll tell you just what we mean.
It tells you just what solar charging really means
Not, “…congratulations, smug environmentalists, you’ve just saved three trees.” More, “This solar charge gives you 100 texts or 32 minutes talk time.” It means every time you juice up your phone outside, you’ll know exactly what you can do with it. It’s a simple, but effective touch.
You can buy dedicated accessories from the phone
Want an analogue stopwatch or Bike GPS to match your Puma Phone? Good, because you can nab them and a stack of other accessories directly from the phone itself. You don’t use PayPal. Once you’ve registered it, it remembers your details so you can buy with one touch whenever you want to add to your Puma collection.
The Puma logo is the speaker
Our favourite little design flourish, this. That chrome Puma on the front of the phone is actually the speaker as well. It certainly makes a change from the recessed rectangle on just about every other smartphone out there.
Even error messages are stylised
Forget the iPhone and its “Invalid Argument” pop-ups. Sagem and Puma have seen to it that the Puma Phone has its own stylish error messages, decked out in the same text as its menu system and given a nice red hue. See, even when it doesn’t work it looks the part.
It has a dedicated app store
Puma World Portal is where you can nab extra apps for your Puma Phone. Sagem and Puma say this blower is aimed at travelling types as well as sports mad mobile fanatics. That means City Guides are already up for grabs, with location-specific content promised too.
There’s a cat inside
That’d be Dylan, the Puma house cat. He’s an on-demand digital cat. That means you can summon him to do silly stuff whenever you want. It’s a novel way to stay entertained on the train, that’s for certain.
It’s even got sailors in mind
That’s right, the Puma Phone has a yachting compass. So as well as taking care of bike riders and fell runners, it’ll even help you get from A to B when you’re lost at sea. Now that’s not something you see in an Android phone.
It does applications with “added charm”
On top of the aforementioned scratching MP3s, the Puma Phone also throws in a “sarcastic calculator” and the promise to “tell it like it is.” Does this mean it’ll laugh as we work out our monthly take home income? Either way it’s a refreshing take from the straight down the line smarties we’re used to.
Its battery does cool stuff too
Who cares about phone batteries? Clearly Puma and Sagem. Fill it right up and you’ll get a message saying ‘happy’. Run it right down to the dregs and it’ll say it’s ‘tired’. It might be a small detail, but one we can’t get enough of.
You can fling flicks from one Puma Phone to another
Got some snaps you want to share with other Puma Phone users? Then just flick your phone and that snap will land on theirs. Think Leyio but far, far cooler.
