I’ll be the first to admit I want a smaller smartphone. I’m stoked Apple brought back the 4-inch display to the iPhone SE. But I’ve never thought “I really wish they made a smartphone just for women.”
Keecoo has. The Keecoo K1 from Chinese company Shenzhen Yi Shengyuan Technology Limited, according to its about page, is a smartphone made just for women.
For too long women have suffered with the back-breaking size and weight of smartphones made for men. Forced to settle for the same pieces of technology men fit squarely in their pockets while the aluminum and glass bricks stick out at odd angles in our jeans, we accept our fate with a smile. Keecoo is here to save us from the rectangles that just aren’t good enough, providing women with candy-colored hexagonal smartphones.
Keecoo
Keecoo genders a device that connects human beings to each other and the world, putting a piece of technology next to make up and beauty products and nauseating stereotypes. I am at a loss for words to fully illustrate my bewilderment and exasperation at a company selling tech to women the same way retailers market shampoo.
Sure, perhaps some women have smaller hands than men, and the industry’s move to make things bigger and broader is annoying to folks like me who can’t stick an iPhone 6S in her clutch. But Keecoo goes beyond marketing to those of us with smaller hands with its 5-inch 720p device; it’s also trying to sell women on its front-facing camera that will “satisfy all sorts of needs for Selfie Enthusiasts.” The camera even “automatically makes your skin look delicate and smooth.”
Keecoo
“This camera, y’all. They’re really trying to sell you on this 8 megapixel front-facing camera for women, because women are the only people who take selfies. Or pictures of anything, really.”
The hexagonal design of the smartphone with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage is supposed to fit perfectly in our tiny, soft paws, in different colors that alert anyone who might see our phones that we are, in fact, women with smartphones. Because how could you have possibly lasted this long using a smartphone so masculine it doesn’t even match your eyeshadow?
Keecoo has not revealed a price on this gender-stereotyped piece of equipment. But chances are it will cost more than your average smartphone, because the “pink tax,” on everything from razors to to t-shirts ensures women pay more than men for the same products.
H/T The Verge