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February 27, 2008 1:34 PM PST

How to play 'Transformers' with your phone

by Mike Yamamoto
(Credit: Akihabara News)

It's kind of surprising that one of the big handset makers didn't come up with a Transformers phone at the height of the movie's hype last year. After all, just about every other form of gadget tried to cash in on it, from laptops and stereos to earphones and MP3 players.

Perhaps Softbank just and Toshiba knew that that true Optimus Prime loyalists would appreciate such a phone regardless of the movie. But it's unclear whether hard-core fans would look past the fact that the new 815T PB handset on the Japanese market doesn't really turn into an actual Transformer, though the untrained eye might be hard-pressed to make the distinction.

Instead the 3G handset, which has a 3.2-megapixel camera and a QVGA screen, was made for a new teen TV show called Ketai Sousakan 7, according to Akihabara News. You also have to glue a kit onto the back of the phone to get the robotic transformation. All of which, frankly, sounds like way too much work for something that would probably break pretty easily if it's treated like most other mobile phones.

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