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ZTE’s modular phone concept offers a glimpse into a DIY smartphone future

You could soon be chopping up your smartphone for spare parts

Esat Dedezade

Modular phone concepts like Motorola’s Project Ara have always got our gadget juices flowing, and ZTE has just given us the most salivating prototype we’ve seen yet.

The ZTE Eco-Mobius modular smartphone concept is currently encased in a glass prison at its booth at CES, and it shows off a rather attractive design in which removable processor, RAM, camera and storage modules are slotted together inside a smartphone.

It remains nothing more than a design concept for the time being, but it’s a tantalising glimpse at an upgradable future where tailored smartphones can be customised like PCs, and we can’t wait for engineers and designers to work their magic.

From swapping out lenses for different shooting environments to upgrading the processor to meet more demanding games, the modular phone concept is high on our list of tech fantasies – right behind a time machine and a hoverboard.

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[via The Verge]

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About

Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.