Summary
- Motorola showcases a prototype phone with a flexible display that can wrap around your wrist, demonstrating new ways to make phones more compact.
- The phone doesn't need an external hinge like foldable phones and can transform from a 6.9-inch screen to a 4.6-inch compact display when bent.
- While the concept has some conveniences, there are concerns about its stability and whether it will actually be released as a product.
Foldable phones are becoming more mainstream, but wraparound displays are still pretty new. At Mobile World Congress this year, we saw some pretty wild tech, including Motorola's Rizr rollable concept phone, which has a screen that rolls over the bottom. Motorola's concept phone was one of the most interesting things at the show, and now the company has taken flexible displays even further with a bizarre phone that bends backwards to wrap around your wrist like a high-tech bracelet.
At Lenovo Tech World '23, Motorola's Mobility division has shown off a prototype phone with a flexible display that can bend at different points, allowing it to wrap and curl around your wrist. Known as "Adaptive Display Concept," it has a Full HD Plus resolution pOLED screen that can be "bent and shaped into different" forms to suit various scenarios.
You might be wondering why Motorola is spending R&D dollars on this concept, but it's really just a way for the company to show that there are other ways to make phones more compact besides foldables, like the Razr 2023. One of the coolest things about Motorola's wraparound phone is that it doesn't need an external hinge, unlike the leading foldable phones. Motorola says that bending it in half transforms the 6.9-inch screen into a 4.6-inch compact display. It can also stand upright on the bent part or wrap around your wrist.
Since the phone has the ability to curl, it can also stand up on its own and snap photos of you while you stand at a distance. This concept looks a lot better than the CPlus, which Lenovo showed off in 2016. The CPlus could also wrap around your wrist, but Lenovo said at the time that the phone's shape-shifting capability was less reliable.
Motorola's parent company is no stranger to weird phone designs. But, for all the conveniences this concept offers, there are some obvious problems with it. For example, the demo videos make it look like the phone could easily slip off your arm if you're skinny or if you move around a lot. But with more refinement, we could see this phone being a hit.
It's a cool trick, but it's important to remember that phone makers have been acting like car companies by announcing concept devices that may never actually be released. This is partly to see if people are interested in the idea and partly to show the public that the company is doing something new and exciting, even if it doesn't actually lead to a product.