Motorola has teased what appears to be a rollable smartphone that changes size with a press of a button. The company briefly demoed the device at Lenovo Tech World. With a press of a button, the screen of the smartphone expands and contracts.
The phone uses a flexible OLED display, measuring 6.5-inches when extended and becomes “just over” 4-inches when retracts to its original form with a click of a button. The device is actually packable at 4-inches high. What is also interesting about this concept phone is that the content on the screen adapts to the size, which includes the home screen and video.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a rollable concept smartphone. In the past, Oppo and TCL both showcased rollable phones. LG, in fact, was even closer to commercially launching a rollable phone until it gave up making smartphones entirely last year. Motorola’s approach to making rollable phones is a little different from the competition. Instead of expanding the screen horizontally, the Motorola-made concept smartphone expands vertically. The intention here is to make a phone that can switch screen size depending on what you are doing instead of taking the route of a smartphone-tablet hybrid device.
Motorola’s announcement of a rollable concept phone comes at a time when every smartphone looks the same. Expert says phone innovation has hit a plateau but brands like Motorola wants to prove wrong with the new phone form factor. Samsung is another player that is trying to innovate smartphones with foldable devices. Motorola itself has launched three interactions of Razr foldable phones in the past.
Motorola didn’t reveal anything about the rollable phone’s specs, price, or even a possible release date. It’s not even clear if the rollable phone even makes it out of the lab and launches commercially. That being said, this device is clearly a part of Motorola’s smartphone strategy.