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Nokia's has posted some images of a new concept phone, called Aeon, that does away with nearly everything that you're likely to expect to find in a traditional mobile handset, such as keypad. Instead, as with a prototype cell phone called Onyx from Synaptics, Aeon is all touch screen.

From the sleek and colorful (obviously touched-up) concept pictures, it appears virtual keys come up on Aeon when you need to make a call. One thing to keep in mind with this concept device (and Onyx for that matter): It is hard enough to keep a smartphone's display clean today, what's it going to be like when the be all and end all of a mobile handset is its screen.


Nokia Aeon

While having the number one cell phone company coming out with a handset design based on a all touch screen concept will surely give the idea a boost, Synaptics was the first company to do so a few weeks a go. It developed its all touch screen phone concept with industrial design company Pilotfish.

Onyx uses Synaptics' ClearPad, an optically clear display solution for creating a fully adaptive user interface. The ClearPad input system eliminates the traditional mechanical keys, just like Aeon, found on phones today and adapts to present the information and controls a user needs at any given moment.

    
                                                                      Synaptics Onyx

More intelligent than conventional touch screens, Synaptics says ClearPad accurately recognizes not only points and taps, but also shapes, complex gestures, and proximity to the user's finger or cheek. The company asserts this creates new possibilities such as assigning functions to two-finger taps, closing tasks by swiping an "X" over them, sending messages by swiping them off the screen, or answering a phone by holding it up to your cheek.

According Synaptics, the Onyx prototype phone uses a dynamic UI, where applications are layered and opened simultaneously, allow for a seamless flow of information between applications.