This is the weirdest phone at MWC 2017 so far. Protruly Darling has a built-in 360-degree camera and it is called the world’s first VR smartphone.

Protruly Darling: the world’s first VR smartphone

The phone was built by a Shenzhen-based company that you probably have never heard of before. In the sea of devices at MWC this year, the Darling really stands out for its design and weirdness. Being called the world’s first “VR mobile phone”, the Darling has an extremely unique design with its built-in 360-degree “VR” camera. The phone is unusually long because of the fisheye lenses on top. It’s coated in pure gold and has four diamonds below the front fisheye camera.

The phone uses a 5.5″ FHD resolution display, a Helio X20 2.5GHz deca-core processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB ROM. In term of Protruly Darling cameras, it has four in total, which means two on each side.Beside the dual 13MP fisheye lenses on the back and front, there are also a 13MP main shooter and an 8MP front snapper. The 360-degree fisheye cameras are the most bizarre things on this phone. Just toggle the VR camera mode within the default camera app to take pictures or videos. The results look comparable to what you’d get from a budget 360-camera.

The phone runs on a customized version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It also has a headphone jack, USB-C port and fingerprint scanner embedded into the home button. However, there’s another model without gold/diamond jewels and has a fingerprint sensor on the back instead.

Protruly Darling: price and verdict

The Protruly Darling is indeed a strange phone. It’s like a Frankenstein device that no major smartphone maker like Apple or Samsung would ever try making. Despite all of that, we have to give credit to Shenzhen Darling Intelligence Technology, Co., LTD for trying. If you want to own this monster, prepare to pay $800 ~ RM. 3560 for the one with jewels or $500 ~ RM. 2225 for the other version.