As phones move further away from traditional button-pushing and toward touch-screen technology, it's nice to know there are minds out there devoted to preserving the tactile experience those passé dial-pad buttons provide. In the case of the Quartz Telephone, designer Tao Ma has taken a buttons-on-steroids approach, with large, protruding quartz crystals providing as stark a contrast to a touch-screen interface as one could possibly imagine. It may not be truly retro, per se, and it may never be produced commercially, but the Quartz Tele certainly deserves to be mentioned with other gizmos that attempt to provide new spins on old-fashioned communications technology.

Each of the device's crystals sits atop an embedded LED, and whenever a crystal is depressed, it lights up "like a brilliant jewel," as the designer declares in his online portfolio. And lest you think this is one of those designs that looks cool but is decided user-unfriendly, the whole thing sits on a base with a large LED screen that displays incoming calls, calendars and contacts, and it even has a built-in speakerphone. No word as to whether those quartz buttons have healing powers or might help with contacting long-departed relatives, but one can hope. — Tony Kontzer

Designer’s portfolio, via Yanko Design