Phones That Never Were: Nokia Nautilus, HTC Memphis, LG Monterey

Every so often we run across a phone that never got to see the light of day: from concepts that failed to materialize to handsets with complete marketing campaigns which must have been killed only days or weeks from release. We thought it would be fun to share a few of these, both because they're an interesting piece of cellphone history, but also because they may still shed light on features and design aspects that we can possibly expect from these companies. Does Nokia want to wirelessly tether your handset to a keyfob to keep you from losing it? Is LG planning a phone that doubles as a Wii-like gaming console? Probably not, but we love seeing manufacturers push the conceptual envelope, even if the resulting product -- like the Kyocera Echo -- doesn't exactly live up to expectations. 

Nokia Nautilus S 



Created by the same designer who helped craft Nokia's new Care font, the Nautilus seems defined by two innovative features: a so-called "z-pop" speaker which is revealed by expanding the phone along the z-axis, and a bundled keychain which sounds an alarm should it move beyond a certain range of the device. Besides the leather back -- likely tipping this as a premium model -- we're reminded somewhat of the company's Symbian^3-powered C7 here, although this could just as easily pass for an HTC product, at least based on the curves of the face. With a slightly bigger screen and some Windows Phone buttons on the front, we think that Nokia could have a winner here.