2/9/2005

If you are a girl and you have no real technological/geek expectations in a mobile phone, but give a lot of thought to the kawaii factor, the new NTT DoCoMo Lechiffon is made for you. Officially released as the P253iS, Panasonic’s Lechiffon lacks pretty much everything, except style perhaps. And in fact even its name is a bit strange: while “chiffon” in english refers to an “ornamental accessory, such as ribbons or laces, for women’s clothing”, the word comes from french (hence the “le”) where it actually means “old rag”…

Anyway, what makes this phone the perfect keitai for every kogyaru in Shibuya is that it comes in pink, blue and white (”rose”, “bleu”, and “blanc” actually) to match your nail polish, that the camera lense is like a little jewel, inserted in a little metallic shape (heart, clove or square), surrounded by little shiny brilliants, and that it is soft and flexible like a (very fat) ribbon.

In fact, playing with it is a strange experience, as it really is a “very soft” phone. Opening the little hook that holds it closed tight releases the spring reaction force in the rubber and lets the phone open itself without any clicking noise nor mecanical resistance. Folding it back feels strange too, because it is just too easy. But hey, it’s kawaii!

But details have not been neglected: the fake leather cover hides a pattern of a matching color on the inside, and the user interfaces colors also differ from one phone to the next to fit the color theme. Hopefully, that should distract you from wanting a better digital camera than the 0.31 megapixel CMOS one.

In fact, Lechiffon is so overly sweet, you should be able to spot it soon in a J-Lo, Britney Spears, or Gwen Stefani music video…

Main specs:
* weight: 122 gram
* size: 102*65*27 mm (soft rubber clamshell)
* main display: 1.9 inch with 65,000 colors (no subdisplay)
* main mobile camera: 0.3 megapixel CMOS
* No real features except Chat Mail and iMode

A presentation on the Panasonic website is here