Press Release: A cooperation between Bang & Olufsen and Samsung Electronics’ Mobile Business has resulted in a unique mobile phone concept that breaks with conventional assumptions.
The phone is pure, simple, and of the highest quality, and the name ‘Serene’ reflects this. The idea behind Serene was to create a mobile phone that is dedicated to one prime purpose: to enable comfortable and convenient communication.
Since early 2004, the two companies have cooperated closely to realise this idea and the result is a truly unique product. In every aspect of the design and technology there is a carefully thought through relationship between form and function that makes both the minimalistic design and the use of the phone elegantly simple and straightforward. The name of the phone, Serene, reflects the core concepts of elegant simplicity and refined minimalism.
The intention is to provide an alternative for those customers who demand the highest quality, for whom simplicity and quality are important factors, and for whom less can be more. It is a phone you want to keep. It is timeless in use, in design, and in technology, freed from unnecessary functions and instructions.
By combining Bang & Olufsen’s concept development and design skills with Samsung’s leadership in mobile phone technology, engineering and quality, both companies saw an opportunity to realise a totally different mobile phone concept. “Serene is the result of our vision to constantly push the boundaries of mobile phone development and bring to our customers unique and exciting products”,says Kitae Lee, President of the Telecommunications Business in Samsung Electronics.
“We wanted Serene to become a precious item, an item that is a personal expression of quality and convenience. The coherence to other Bang & Olufsen products is experienced through the design and a very simple user operation,” says Torben Ballegaard Sørensen, CEO of Bang & Olufsen.
Serene consists of two equal parts that are tied together by a beautifully crafted aluminum hinge. The display and microphone are placed in the lower shell in a landscape orientation and the circular keyboard and loudspeaker is placed in the upper shell with an elegant thumb operated wheel in the middle taking care of all primary operations.
Accordingly, the colours, fonts, screen format and size have been specially selected with logical operation in mind. The relatively large, wide format display makes reading and writing on the screen even more pleasant. At the same time, restricting the number of features on the handset makes it possible to limit the number of menus, which in turn makes the experience of using Serene both logical and intuitive.
Serene comes with a triangular charger/docking station made in polished anodized aluminium with a cut-out for the phone. If the phone is placed in the docking station or the phone is used in a table mode it can be used as a mini-laptop as the display can turn 180 degrees for convenient use in this position as well.
As a special feature for Bang & Olufsen customers, a special DECT docking station is available which enables Serene to synchronise its phonebook with the domestic cordless system of telephones from Bang & Olufsen.
Serene will be launched in Europe, Russia and Ukraine during the 4th quarter of this year. It will be distributed through Bang & Olufsen stores and in select high-end Samsung distribution partners. It will retail in Bang & Olufsen stores for approximately 1100 Euros inclusive of a special Bang & Olufsen DECT accessory and in Samsung retailer partners for approximately 1000 Euros without the DECT accessory.
More info: http://www.serenemobile.com/
Wow! But it doesn’t have iTunes!!!
Sorry. That thing’s ugly. And the navigation wheel doesn’t do it for me.
I’ll take a pass. I don’t have a square pocket to put this thing in and the round keypad is not doing it for me.
Not to mention, B&O is owned by Creative’s parent company.
MDN word: less
And it looks thick in the animation. Don’t like the bulkiness.
Wow! This would have made a great phone for Apple to have released! I love the sleek simple design.
Don’t like it? Don’t buy it.
How many people who don’t like this design will buy the Apple one instead? Not many? Me either, and I support Apple every chance I get.
this will be perfect. Slowly getting tired of my RAZR.
Ugly…………..
B&O always makes amazingly designed products, but the one thing they don’t have that Apple does is Design + User-friendliness. If Apple designed this phone they wouldn’t have done the rotary dial thing, no matter how cool it looked.
Interesting remark from “me” above.
B&O is a Danish company and Creative is a Singapore company. I can’t seem to find any link between the two. In fact, if they’re indeed owned by the same parent company, I’m very surprised Creative hasn’t called upon the design talents of B&O. Care to shed some light on your statement?
MW: full. …unless you’re full of it.
Looks like a desk calendar and compass all rolled into one with an LCD screen. Ugly.
But hey, if you like it, buy it, if you don’t, leave it where it is. That’s the beauty of opinion and choice.
It looks just like one of thosen 1950’s dial phones, just can’t say it is good-looking
reading the copy and then looking at the picture – its fscking upside down.
“The display and microphone are placed in the lower shell in a landscape orientation and the circular keyboard and loudspeaker is placed in the upper shell with an elegant thumb operated wheel in the middle taking care of all primary operations”
Yeah.. i’ve got Jonathon here cracking up next to me… hilarious.
Its not buitiful, i agree, but its still ten times more buitiful than the “itunes phone”.
P.T.,
You’re right. I think ‘me’ is full of it.
…pisa crap. I bet they’ll sell six in the Bang & Olufsen company store.
oh wait – never mind – you can use it either way.
wait… no you can’t. You can only use it as a phone with the screen on the bottom, but the screen will flip if you flip it over.
oh geesh.. this is even worse that i thought at first.
do i even need to mention that there’s no easy way to figure out how to open it properly? If you want to make a phone call, you have a 50/50 chance of opening it the right way – so you’ll have to flip it over to use it half the time.
nice.
looks like theyve strategically hidden a scroll wheel in the center of all those numbered buttons
agree with other poster – it looks like a rotary dial phone. it kinda reminds me of a gameboy advance. you can flip the orientation of the screen. judging by appearance, can’t say its better or worse than the ROKR, just different. apple could probably do a better design.
That is one F*&^(*& ugly phone! And what’s with the stupid rotary layout – composing SMS messages with that will be a nightmare. Layout of function buttons also not intuitive. What al oad of rubbish – would expect better than this from B&O. They’ve really lost their touch, but then again I’ve never liked their phones.
the other steve jobs –
Perhaps it is you who is upside down.
It’s purty. Probably very small. (no sense of scale in the flash). The key arrangement is not intuitive. They’d do better putting an actual rotary dial on it.
I can dig the idea of not putting the screen against your face/hair.. cuts down on greasy screen syndrome. But you still get greasy key syndrome, plus the possibility of pressing keys with your head while you’re talking, and you can drool on the screen.
But if you’re not retarded, it’ll be a fine phone, I’m sure. B&O does great work, usually.
Not Mac or iPod related, though… why is it here?
Wouldn’t the circular wheel thing make texting really really hard to do?
And the screen looks like it would get in the way of the pad bit.
Looks like an old 1930s, black, butt-ugly, rotary dial phone. It’s as though Sony and Apple have sucked up all the industrial designers and left nothing for the Dells of the world.
“Serene consists of two equal parts that are tied together by a beautifully crafted aluminum hinge. The display and microphone are placed in the lower shell in a landscape orientation and the circular keyboard and loudspeaker is placed in the upper shell with an elegant thumb operated wheel in the middle taking care of all primary operations.”
If you look closely at the photo, you’ll realize the description has it backwards. Unless the photo on the phone’s display is upside down.
As a cell phone user, I like the simplicity of its concept. A cell phone that just does phones calls. I would gladly exchange my LG VX6100 for one of these. Convergence is vastly overrated.
And, as a designer, I like the design. Mirrors its functionality. Many expressions about its “poor” design are confusing what they like (their taste) with good design.