It looks a little too long for my tastes, but you’ve got to hand it to Pantech for trying something a little different. The Flexus 03 concept phone has just made it to the IF Design Award 2007 finals. Taking minimalism to a whole new level, the Flexus hides its main display behind a sleek black translucent cover, only illuminating when any pertinent details need to be be shown.

Underneath the Sky branding, you’ll find not a five way navigator, per se, but what appears to be a micro-trackball, flanked on either side by a touch-sensitive key. To access the numpad, you slide the phone up (like so many other Korean handsets), to reveal — no surprise here — a rather minimalist set of digits. It’s slick, it’s simple, and I’d probably go as far as to say that it’s pretty darn sexy too. Sign of things to come, Pantech? This is quite a departure from the chunky, yet functional IM-U140.