So, what basically a Modular Phone or a modular smartphone is? This is what Wikipedia will tell you:-

“A modular smartphone is a smartphone made using different components that can be independently upgraded or replaced in a modular design.”

Well, simply a Modular Phone is that in which all parts can be removed or replaced even the essential ones too. And similarly, if it is possible to remove only a specific no. of parts then it is semi-modular and if no part is removable i.e. the only idea remains to fix is repairing then it is the non-modular phone.

A modular tech is generally a best of its kind as it allows to take out any part and replace it and viola! It is like replacing a graphic card out of a computer with upgraded one for increased performance without even waiting until your device dies and you think of replacing it with a new one. You can change any part as per your will without modifying the whole system or buying a new one. Isn’t it great!

 So, the most optimistic thing about a modular phone is the idea of being able to swap all parts in and out of the phone at any time. Just like, in a situation where the battery is about to die and you are on a long trip so in such case you’ll just swap out new module and replace it with old one or let’s say your camera performance is not that good or your phone is getting slow day by day so instead of buying a new one you will just replace the module with the latest one and you are good to go.!!

The concept of modular phones first arrived from a video of a device named as “phonebloks” and got about 20 million views within the week. The represented a device made up of detachable blocks with a few base layers in which these blocks can be attached.Just look at the concept.

And I’m not talking about just battery or expandable storage, it makes to look like one can replace audio jack, the gyroscope sensor even the SOC module was replaceable. The “phonebloks” was a crowd funding campaign which so far looked like it was going to be an actually a brilliant awesome idea because in actual it was kind of. And this was the first time when people were actually considering to move over a fully modular smartphone. And then they just got disappeared from the picture and no one even heard about them for a pretty long time.

Later, we got our hopes back again and project ARA came to the picture. It was kind or resurfaced version of phonebloks with a pretty same look bit well-built design. But it was more than a year had passed and no news came from ARA. Later this year in Google I/O, an update came with working prototypes of modular phones and it was kind of amazing too.But the sad was that the removable configuration were a few. Actually, there are only 6 replaceable configurations in the modular phones from project ARA which are very few as compared which was shown in 2013 in phonebloks and these were more seems to like semi-modular instead of a fully modular phone. They only allow replacing of parts like  the speaker, camera, battery and etc which spoiled all image of phonebloks. These are the latest project ARA modular phone prototypes.

But for those who really waiting for these phones, the bad news is the project is under developer device and will go on till the end of the year. And the product will launch next for the consumers if google somehow manages to get third-party manufacturers who will design these modules for the phones.

But, still, the market is equipped with few products like LG G5 which seems to be so called a modular phone just because it has an option for replacing the battery. Actually, it is barely a modular phone because it is not like what you expect after reading the all this and what you know so far. But there is one another device which is still need to be launched but it is kind of modular phone.

Well, I’m talking about “Moto Z-Droid”. Yes.!! Motorola is going to launch a pretty good device named as “Moto Z-Droid” and also announced to launch some extra accessories which the company called “Moto Z Mods”. The company so far said the phone is capable of getting attached with those accessories for improved performance and a mark of  First Generation Modular Phones. Recently, 3 accessories are so far seen. One is for the extra battery, another one for improved speakers and the another one turn the phone into a projector. And since by using these accessories with Moto Z-Droid will become pretty uncomfortable and heavy, and so Moto Z-Droid is designed in such a way that the width of the phone is just 5 mm which quite impressive.These are few pics of Moto Z-Droid and its mods:-

So, at the end of the day, there are 99% of people who don’t actually care about all these stuff and they don’t want to build a modular phone of their own except what they want is higher battery and increased storage and remaining 1% who are crazy about all such replaceable tech  also wanted to be quite cheap but it is somehow reasonable. And at last, I just want to say it is a pretty dope concept.

Hope you find it interesting..!!See you in my next post..!!