More Japan W10M news: NuAns NEO will go on sale late-January 2016 along with customizing accessories

NuAns (pronounced “Nuance”) is a lifestyle-design house that makes accessories to complement digital life along with bringing a kind of simplistic look to one’s interior. They’ve made accessories for iPhones mostly– like docks, speakers, a cool lamp that is also a speaker with a lightning dock, etc. Now they’ve completely blown my mind by releasing a Windows 10 mobile smartphone that is ticking major design boxes.

Called the NEO, customization of the look is the name of the game with this phone it seems. Highlights of this phone are:

64 different user-selectable color combos for the two-tone back cover as well as a flip carrying case accessory that will be offered in 8 colors as well.

The camera unit is 13MP @f2 in the back and 5 @f2.4 in the front.

The phone itself will be SIM-free with 1 nano-SIM slot. (not SIM locked, and not sold at carrier’s stores here in Japan, but rather certain outlets, and will work on Docomo, Y! Mobile, and Softbank’s LTE networks and all MVNO operators here. Will support 2G（Quad band） 3G（Band 1/6/8/9/19 42Mbps/5.76Mbps） 4G LTE（Band 1/3/8/19/28 Cat.4 FDD maxing out at 150Mbps）

1280x720 res 5 inch display @ 295 dpi (says for ease of use by women…but I regularly see women on the train here with 6" and even 7" ‘super phablets’. Whatevz.)

Will have rapid charging and a high capacity 3,350mAh battery that supposedly will get through 2 days use.

That rapid charging is in part due to the use of USB-C for the wired interface.

Windows 10 is onboard, and I see a continuum supporting dock accessory in the website!!!

Snapdragon 617 SOC (MSM8952) octa-core at 1.5GHz.

2GB RAM and 16GB on-board flash storage. Also external storage through Micro SD slot up to 128GB

NFC/Felica capable.

MSRP for the phone itself is JP¥39,800

The covers consist of upper and lower portions. There are 8 different designs for each, giving 64 possible combos. Real wood and artificial leather will be offered as well. The cases can hold 2 NFC capable cards (i.e. transit pass and e-money card) that can be then carried on the phone as well. This also means that with the right software, the phone’s NFC antennae should be able to read the info from the cards as well and tell how much the balance of your transit pass is for example. They will range in price from 1,400 to 1,600 JPY + tax

Speaking of cases, the flip case is a notebook style coming in 8 colors and materials as well, having 2 antennas for NFC/Felica too. There’s also a video viewing stand function for the cover as well. MSRP is 2,750 to 3,680 JPY + tax.

Check out the press release and head over to their just opened and unbelievably well designed website to see the great phone in all its glory! (trust me, I’ve been in Japan for 15 years and its super rare to find a nicely designed product website with concise info on it!)

This is big news because someone like them would normally dive into the Android world if they wanted to make a new designer phone – they chose Win 10!!

(Source: neo.nuans.jp)