Thought the Lumia 800 looked cool with its bright polycarbonate plastic body? Please. We've moved on to more elegant design tastes, thanks to how awesome a transparent Windows Phone looks. The Verge's Joshua Topolsky received a tour of Microsoft Research's modeling shop, where the team produces 3D prototypes for R&D testing. The magic is done with a 3D printer, a UV cured liquid that's way too high above our heads to explain in detail, and good 'ol fashioned design specs.

While the majority of printed prototypes were computer accessories, a transparent Windows Phone is what caught our eye. Created for the original announcement of Windows Phone (read: no actual hardware), the prototype was intended to simply present what Metro looked like -- and it no doubt achieved that in pretty stunning execution. We want one, so if any Windows Phone manufacturer can make this happen we'll be there day one. Make it happen, people. Video is embedded after the break, and for more of Microsoft Research we recommend you watch the site's most recent episode of On The Verge.

Source: The Verge 1, 2


[Video above is HTML5, so it should work just fine for mobile viewers]