Motorola’s new flip phone concept resizes with the push of a button

Motorola just announced a new rollable smartphone concept with a screen that expands and contracts at the touch of a button. The company demonstrated the device at Lenovo Tech World, and it’s the latest example of how tech companies are experimenting with ways to push the modern smartphone forward.

Lenovo’s foldable concept phone has a 5-inch display that can expand to 6.5 inches when unfolded. This makes it more compact than even iPhone 13 Mini when in its small mode, and almost the same size as iPhone 14 Pro Max when fully expanded. The company has no plans to release the device yet as it is still in the concept stage.

The announcement comes after Motorola announced third generation Razr August in China. Evan Blass previously reported that Motorola is in the early stages of developing a rollable smartphone, as he blogged. 91 Mobile in May.

Motorola’s approach to rolling smartphones is different from some of the other concepts we’ve seen so far. Companies love it Samsung and TCL, for example, have developed concept devices with screens that extend horizontally rather than vertically to switch between smartphone and tablet. But with its concept, Motorola aims to provide a smartphone that can change the screen size depending on the situation, rather than developing a hybrid smartphone and tablet.

But it’ll likely be a while before you’re able to buy a foldable phone, much like companies like Samsung introduced foldable phone concepts years before the first Galaxy Fold arrived. But Ross Young, co-founder and CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants, thinks that bendable devices could solve some of the shortcomings of today’s large-format foldable devices like Galaxy Z Fold line.

“I think the rollable concept has a lot of potential to replace that book-type device in my mind because it’s going to be much thinner,” he said in a previous interview. “And it should be a lot easier.”

Although Motorola the first collapsible Razr Attracting a lot of attention when it was launched in 2019, Samsung is the industry leader when it comes to foldable phones. Samsung accounts for 62% of the global foldable phone market, while Huawei took second place with 16%, according to Counterpoint Research. The same report also suggests that the foldable phone market is expected to grow by 73% in 2022, indicating that consumers may become more receptive to phones with screens that can bend, bend and eventually rotate.

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