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Lenovo subsidiary Motorola is showing off several concepts for new hardware and software at Lenovo Tech World ’23. Among other things, there are AI-enhanced apps for using your phone’s camera as a document scanner, summarizing text on a website, or blurring sensitive info in a screenshot (without the need to tell the app which info to blur).
But everybody has new AI features to show these days. One thing Motorola is showing off that’s truly unusual us an “adaptive display concept” that basically allows a smartphone with a foldable display to become a smartwatch when wrapped around your wrist.
Motorola says the concept has a flexible 6.9 inch FHD+ pOLED display “that can be bent and shaped into different forms depending on users’ needs.
For example, you can use it as a phone when unfolded. Bend it around your wrist and it becomes a watch. Or bend it so that it stands up like a tent and you can use it to snap selfies or participate in video calls without the need to hold your phone.
Motorola says in standing position, you effectively get a 4.6 inch display. And when on your wrist, you get “a similar experience to the external display on the motorola razr+,” which means you can view notifications, widgets, or other apps including video players, media playback controls, or even a keyboard for responding to messages.
Is this a practice use of foldable display technology? I have no idea. But it’s certainly something that stands out from many of the other foldable phones already on the market.
I suspect Motorola is showing off the concept both as a way of demonstrating that it’s thinking outside the box and as a way to gauge interest before deciding whether to incorporate these designs into a real product that you might be able to buy one day.
I like the thought because it would though be a smartwatch with a decent battery size and a lot of apps. But you’d really, really need a screen protector.
Innovation eh? They can keep their folding phones…I’d just like to be able to replace my battery.
I’m sorry but the entire “folding” thing: I mean not just this concept but any foldable screen on anything is a retarded gimmick.
Now just imagine all the trade-offs of having the ENTIRE FUCKING PHONE be able to flex and fold. The whole concept sounds like something a teenager would imagine. “Let’s have a car that like… can fly… but is also an awesome speedboat!”
That’s why it’s a concept, not a finished product. Even if some of the specific elements of the concept don’t make it into production, the creative work can lead to other ideas. I applaud Motorola for looking outside the box and hope they and other manufacturers continue to push the envelope. Otherwise we’ll all be holding 7-inch slabs to our ears for the foreseeable future.
Hey, Nokia Morph is back!
I like the thought, because it would though be a smart watch with a decent battery size and a lot of apps. But you’d really, really need a screen protector.
Everyone has new AI features to show these days, and all of them are just reselling OpenAI. Who you really don’t want to be feeding your sensitive information.
The document scanner I could see working offline.
Oh, the flexphone? Yeah, whatever premium you have to pay, it’s probably not going to be worth it compared to a cheaper phone with a degoogled ROM or an iphone depending on whether you’re a thought criminal or a decent human being.
Motorola Slapr
While I would love this, I noticed that it doesn’t wrap all the way around. If be afraid of it slipping off and falling tragically to the ground. You’d need something to make it fast (especially to prevent people just swiping it from your wrist
Exactly.
It would be a very VERY difficult task of having a gauntlet/watch properly wrap around your wrist. Then be able to flatten out into a useable “candybar” form-factor as a phone.
If you could pull it off, I would imagine this could become the new “iPhone” and sell a million units per week or more.
The flipside is to just have a normal watch or dedicated smartwatch, but have the phone but fold out into something larger, instead of something smaller. This seems easier. And the 2019 Huawei Mate X Fold had the concept brilliantly, but it’s execution wasn’t so good. And no other OEMs picked it up, instead going for a quasi tri-screen abomination that Samsung is going for.