When it comes to bar-shaped smartphones, it takes a good amount of effort to design something visually appealing. There’s really only so much you can do with a flat slab – and whatever can be done likely already has.

With that said, there’s just something about this handset, the Qisda QCM-330. I’m not sure what that “something” is, but I like it.

The QCM-330 has emerged as one of the winners of an iF mobile design contest, though the awards won’t be passed out officially until CeBit in March. Congratulations and all that to the design team for snatchin’ up a trophy, but we’re far more interested in the handset itself.

Check out the beast of a display on the front; not only does it measure in at a massive 4 inches, but they’ve also purportedly managed to crank the resolution on that thing all the way up to 1280×1024 (though, with a widescreen like that, it’s more likely to be running at 1280×720). That’s a considerably higher resolution than we’ve ever seen on a smartphone, as far as I know. The recognizable home key on the bottom right gives us high hopes that this thing is rocking Android, though they’ve yet to confirm as much.

What has been confirmed, however, is the WiFi, HSDPA, 3 megapixel camera, and accelerometer packed inside. The only thing we don’t like about this handset? There’s no indication thus far that it’ll be heading stateside.

If you’re a Russian reader, the guys over at MobileReview have the scoop on a handful of other (considerably less exciting) design contest – but if you’re English-only, Unwired View has a pretty exhaustive write-up in your tongue.