The best part about CES is seeing what the next generation of tech may look like. These products aren’t necessarily on the verge of coming out. Sometimes they’re just prototypes. But despite their uncertainty there is often a sense of inevitability. Such as with the new class of rollable phones that debuted this year.
Wired sums it up best:
“For more than a decade, smartphone designers have stuck closely to the humble rectangular slab. Yet of late, manufacturers are experimenting with wilder forms. We’ve seen devices with multiple displays, phones of different shapes, and handsets of varying sizes. Last year, Samsung and Motorola made clamshell-shaped flip phones that opened up to look like normal smartphones. Even Microsoft waded into the weird end of the pool with the Duo, a book-like phone with dual displays connected by a vertical hinge in the center.
And now there’s a new trend in phone design: handsets with flexible screens that unroll to become larger. This week at CES 2021, TCL and LG both unveiled concepts for new phones with rolling screens.
What exactly is a ‘rollable’? The form can vary, but imagine having the ability to expand a phone’s display by pulling on it vertically or horizontally to increase its surface area. Think of it like removing plastic wrap from its container. That’s what TCL and LG showed off. It’s not hard to recognize the benefits. Unlike folding phones, which are thick in their closed state since the rigid screens stack on top of each other, a rollable phone can start out slim. An ultra-compact phone with a rollable screen can grow into the size of a traditional smartphone and then shrink back down with a gentle two-handed tug or push.”
Personally, I’m a big fan of this concept, especially as the technology continues to advance, as we could one day get to the point where our phones our virtually miniscule and then unfurl into a variety of sizes to fit our needs. Let the good times roll!
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