Nubia Alpha: Is that a smartphone on your wrist, or are you on prison release?

Sometimes companies get a bit ahead of the technology merely for the right to say they were the first.

We saw this for example with the Royale Flexpai, which was the first truly folding smartphone but was rather ridiculous, with Huawei showing the same idea could be implemented much, much better.

Now Nubia has shown us the way to the future with a device which will hopefully soon be relegated to the rubbish pile of impractical historic firsts.

Their Nubia Alpha fitness tracker cum smartwatch features a flexible screen which wraps around your wrist and which runs a custom OS.

Shown off at MWC 2019, the band features a 4 inch 960×192 OLED screen, 1GB RAM and 8GB storage and a 5-megapixel camera, powered by a Snapdragon 2100 processor and can run for a day or two on its 500 mAh battery.

It also has Bluetooth, WIFI and eSIM technology and can make calls, send text messages, use apps and browse the internet.

Besides the multi-touch screen, it can also be controlled via gesture-based air controls, which lets you scroll through and go into and out of menus.

For the fitness-tracker side, it also features heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking, though how one can sleep with that monster on your arm remains to be explained.

It can also play music to accompany you on your exercise, via Nubia’s Pods wireless headphones.

A Bluetooth-only model will launch for €449 (roughly $510, £390, AU$710) in Europe, North America and China, sometime in the second quarter of the year, while the eSIM version (also available in gold) will be available in April in China followed and Q3 2019 for Europe and “Q4” for North America. The black version will cost €549 (around $620, £475, AU$870), and for the 18K gold finish you’ll be paying €649 (about $740, £560, AU$1,030).

See TechAdvisor’s hands-on below:

Does the idea of wearing a prop from Star Trek excite our readers? Let us know below.

Via TechRadar, screenshot via Androidworld.it