Fashion accessories with a purpose

Tired of the conventional line of cell phones? The Chinese designer Tao Ma for the 2006 Lite-on Corporation awards has created a concept design; it's a jewel encrusted cell phone/bracelet. It has the normal volume adjustment buttons, an earphone jack and manual pick up and hang up buttons, and is also able to play MP3 tunes. It vibrates when you are getting a call, sorry no crazy ring tones for this one; and when you want to answer it opens up just like any other phone. Obviously it doesn't have a screen, so say goodbye to all those text messages and caller id.

I have two major concerns with this design, for one have you ever looked at the face of your watch? It gets pretty beat up at times; I mean obviously that depends on what you do for a living and how much you wear your watch. Likely you will wear this around a lot, because you like having your phone with you and obviously it is cute. This means that over time (a few months) it's going to get several dings and scratches, and lose that cute luster that really makes it sparkle.

The other part is, as women, we aren't always as coordinated as we would like people to believe. To me, the clasp or lack there of looks like one good smack against something in the right spot is going to send it flying. I know we all have dropped our phones from time to time, but let's face it, a good portion of the appeal of this phone is how pretty it looks on your wrist and after it has been dropped a couple of times you likely won't want to wear it as much. Unfortunately you will have to wait to see if this one is going to be hitting the market any time soon, if ever.

Totally Geeky or Geek Chic? The Cell Phone Bracelet