Is the smartphone market solely the playground of the big names?  After all, if we asked you to name a smartphone manufacturer, the likes of Nokia, Apple, HTC and so on would be mentioned – all major players with plenty of experience who have seemingly locked out this lucrative sector.  If established brands like Dell, Acer and Garmin all have trouble promoting a smartphone, what chance does a previously unheard-of company have?

Step forward Emblaze Mobile, a London-based Israeli tech company who have been designing phones since 1998, and software experts ACCESS, who have joined together to create ELSE Ltd, whose first smartphone is due during the second quarter of 2010.  It will be called the First ELSE and judging by our first look at the device and learning about their vision, they’re not going to have to worry about their current anonymity.

The First ELSE isn’t actually being promoted as a smartphone, instead it will create its own genre.  The aim is to shun the established way of taking a phone and adding in features such as a music player and camera, without really integrating them into the OS.  The First ELSE will have all these things, but they will be completely optimised to run inside the operating system, blurring the line of where the OS ends and an app begins.

This revolutionary Linux-based system will be called INTUITION and its sci-fi look is beyond anything we’ve seen so far.  A fan-like menu named sPlay will be controlled by using just your thumb against the touchscreen, with further options appearing as you move around.  With the First ELSE, the uniform OS style says feature phone, but the ability and the specs say smartphone.  Take a look through the key features:

• 3.5″ capacitive LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 854×480.
• A 5 megapixel camera with optical and digital zoom.
• Assisted GPS.
• 3G with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
• Music and media player.

So, the First ELSE is an exciting prospect for the coming year, however it doesn’t end there.  ELSE will be offering the chance to license their INTUITION operating system and a consultation service for others who want to build a new handset.  They say they made the First ELSE to prove it could be done, and that it’s only the beginning.  A developer SDK is also expected in 2010.

Now, although a First ELSE running INTUITION has been seen and played with, the less exciting side of marketing a new phone has not been discussed, so there is no information on any network backing, pricing or a confirmed release date.  We certainly wouldn’t want to see the First ELSE become an unreleased showcase for INTUITION, purely made to entice any of the aforementioned big name manufacturers, but currently there is nothing to suggest this isn’t at least a possibility.

But Q2 2010 is a while away yet, so to tide you over have a good long browse around the First ELSE website, where there are plenty of video demonstrations of INTUITION in action, while we try to calm ourselves down a little.  It’s no good though – roll on 2010!