Finally: Philips AAA-Enabled Cellphone In Production

By Evan Ackerman

About a year ago, I wrote about the Philips Xenium NRG cellphone, which was brilliant enough to include a AAA battery slot in its ugly-ass body, allowing you to power your phone with an on-the-fly rechargeable, replaceable, ubiquitous, and dirt-cheap standard battery. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (aka 3GSM) this week, Philips showed off a production version of the phone, which now has a better case and a worse name: it’s to be known as the “9@9j.” Let me retype that lest you think I had a seizure at the keyboard: it’s the “9@9j.” Thanks, Philips.

“It has a standard lithium ion rechargeable battery, but it has the option to put a AAA battery in, and it’ll give you three hours extra talktime. If your lithium ion battery goes dead, the backup battery kicks in, and starts to charge the lithium ion battery, so you can start using the phone straight away.”

Look for it in April of this year.

VIA [ Tech Digest ]