Physical experience 01: Key-press feel

To achieve the Æ+Y’s particular key-press, many techniques were explored. The crisp, gentle, mechanical click the user feels when pressing the keys is the result of extensive tuning and fine-tuning.

Physical experience 02: Weight

Ensuring that the phone feels good in the hand and is not top heavy required careful internal and external weight distribution, and the redesign and re-engineering of some internal components.

Physical experience 03: Sound

The phone’s sound chamber has been carefully engineered for superior voice and acoustic performance. To achieve this, the spatial volume in the phone’s cavity was maximised, and the acoustics were fine-tuned specifically for Chris Minh Doky’s tones.

Physical experience 04: Polishing

For the ceramic, a double lapping polishing process was used to give the phone the highest level of polish possible. At less than RA 0.02, the level of polish of the Æ+Y surpasses industry standards. General engineering finish equates to a machine finish of RA1.6 and for example a super polish is RA0.05.

For the metal parts, the high level of polish was achieved with a significant amount of hand-finishing by trained specialists. The resulting brushed finish may have a fine variance between each phone, due to the handmade element of the process.

The contours of the phone, particularly the rear and end caps, have the same high level of finish as the keypad. Achieving this without damaging the edges of the components required very skilful tooling.