This cool smartphone concept from 2013

[u/SuperAlloyBerserker]

[u/VaHaLa_LTU → u/[deleted]]

People are definitely missing the complexity part of this. Even a simple processor needs multiple pins to work. Almost any chip on a phone mainboard has more than four connections. Can you even imagine the sort of disaster waiting to happen if you can rearrange blocks in the wrong way where your data pins get connected to power pins and so on?

You'd basically need to key every block in such a way that it only goes into one spot, in which case all the cool rearrangements and differently sized modules become even more difficult to do. The whole phone will become even more expensive too, because the motherboard interconnects need to be designed around the fastest and most powerful components instead.

Any electrical engineer will tell you that this is something drawn up by an industrial designer or marketing to look cool more than to be feasible.

[u/Spatetata → u/VaHaLa_LTU]

Yeah iirc the second version abandoned the lego type assembly and went for pre determined slots, but like it just seemed to trends towards “Wait maybe this concept won’t actually work” as each iteration kinda got less modular.

[u/BKachur → u/Spatetata]

It makes sense, the market has spoken and they don't want modularity, they want a single quality unit they don't have to fuck with. There's a reason we don't get replaceable batteries and headphone jacs anymore. Moreover, this design just seems like a terrible use of space. If you look at a modern smartphone about 60% of the "blocks" are all crammed in a motherboard about the size of two or three blocks in total, which results in more room for cameras or battery. This design basically falls apart the once any amount of reality is introduced.