Inventor Unveils Homemade Smartphone That Defies the Ordinary

Marcin Plaza, an inventor, created a smartphone to protest modern technology. Specifically, a reimagined Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, which takes a discarded foldable phone and turns it into a functional masterpiece of sorts, with a BlackBerry keyboard and CNC-machined metal body.

Plaza begins with a broken Z Flip, which is frequently found on eBay due to its brittle display. He buys a cheap one, and disassembles it down to the bare bones. The folding screen was the phone’s main issue, so he removed it, leaving only the small exterior screen and core components. This allows for a complete overhaul that values individualism over mass market appeal. Plaza creates a flip mechanism by breaking the phone in two and linking them with a bespoke four-bar linkage.

Plaza chose the BlackBerry Q10 keyboard because he enjoys the tactile sensation of using a physical keyboard, which he incorporates into his project by simulating a USB keyboard using Arduino. This enables the phone to detect key presses as if they were coming from a standard peripheral. It’s not without its challenges – Plaza struggles with tiny connectors, solder paste errors and a USB-C breakout board that constantly supplies the wrong voltage – but his perseverance pays off and the keyboard types reliably, except for a briefly troublesome spacebar.

The CNC machined aluminum casing, created with PCBWay, not only houses the phone’s internals but also features magnets for a satisfying snap when closed. The four-bar linkage allows the keyboard to easily spring out and basically transforms the phone into a portable typewriter. Each iteration brings Plaza closer to perfection; he is experimenting with proportions and radii to make everything just right.

His proposal to attach the BlackBerry keyboard to the phone’s USB system means he needs to create a custom PCB. He uses a flexible PCB to navigate the phone’s new layout’s small spaces and a stencil to apply solder paste to the tiny Hyro BM14 connector. It’s a process plagued with mistakes, upside down stencils, shorted pins and a USB-C breakout that only gives 1V instead of the required 5V. After hours of searching and microsoldering, Plaza finds out that a resistor swap is needed to signal the power supply.

Plaza installs Samsung’s Good Lock app with the MultiStar module, so apps can run on the Z Flip’s cover screen, turning it into a fully working screen despite its small size. The phone can play games like Minecraft and Terraria, scroll through YouTube Shorts and run standard apps. Plaza hasn’t put in a SIM card yet but the phone’s basic features work flawlessly, this is more than just a gimmick, it’s a daily driver. He doesn’t need a 5G antenna, he rejects that as unnecessary, the phone’s physical factor is more important than chasing the latest networking trends.