It would seem that a certain black-and-silver phone has attracted a bit of a following in the design department. The Japan-only Sophia Nani, launching next week, sports a massive 4.3" touchscreen TFT display running at a crisp 800x400 resolution. A digital TV tuner rounds out a complete multimedia package, but one crucial feature will inevitably doom this newborn phone to the "design-only" box: Windows CE.

Yes, the beauty of the Nani is deceiving. The onboard WiFi capabilities will be handicapped by a sub-par web browser and multimedia capabilities will be bogged down by Windows Media Player 10. While the dual cameras are a unique addition (VGA in front, SVGA in back), the Nani boasts a simple Micro SD card slot in lieu of a more robust storage option like a hard drive. While it certainly won't challenge anything else out there for dominance of the phone/PMP market, the Sophia Nani is proof of the new design direction cell phones are heading in. [PMP Today]

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