The mobile phone design trends in the last year have veered toward touch screens – finetuning the technology, adding multitouch technology support, and debating on whether resistive is better than capacitive. Other trends accomplish feats like increasing the number of features on a phone, or fitting a QWERTY keyboard in the smallest imaginable space without giving up on typing accuracy. 

We did an article earlier on blinging out phones with gold and diamonds, but this mobile phone is altogether a different kind of extravagant luxury item. 

The noted watchmakers, Ulysee Nardin, have decided to launch another phone. The company has teamed up with a UK mobile phone company, called SCI Innovations, to bring out the Chairman. The name should be a tip-off as to its price tag, but for those people who are hopeful – the first phone was called FREAK and retailed at an astronomical 44,000 pounds sterling. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, because the cheapest watch in their repertoire is nothing less than 15,000 pounds. Then there was the Circus minute Repeater phone, and now the Chairman. If nothing else, at least the names are becoming less outlandish. 

If the price wasn’t barrier enough, there are going to be only 1846 phones made. The strange figure is a commemoration of the United Nations, 1846 being the year it was established. 

There are some good facets to the phone: firstly, it is a ‘green’ phone. The environmentally conscious mobile phone handset derives some of its power from the ancient watch technology of kinetic charging. There is a moving wheel embedded in the back that charges the phone continuously. It is being called a hybrid phone, so it must also have a port to charge the phone electrically; just in case the wheel stops, perhaps. 

The phone is also said to be a smart phone, which is truly incomprehensible since it looks like an antique. It boggles the mind to think that one may actually use this phone to edit documents or hook it up to a projector to screen presentations. Additionally, how many people are going to opt for something that may not have a touch screen, when that is the latest in mobile phone technology, remains to be seen. 

The mobile phone will be on formally launched at the BaselWorld 2009 watch show, which is taking place from the 26th of March to the 2nd of April. 

The phone is shrouded in mystery as of now, and the sneakiest peeks at the marvel have shots of just the back. It does look like a rectangular watch, with watch-like instruments. It even seems to have a dial similar to the one used to set the time or wind a timepiece. The best photos of the phone will probably will be released only after the trade show, which is a real pity for the curious. After all, it will be the only opportunity to see the phone at all. 

Very sketchy details of the phone are available on the Ulysee Nardin website, here. And there is a form in case one is to be ordered.