After folding, unrolling? Lenovo and its subsidiary Motorola have just presented a portable PC and a smartphone equipped with sliding screens which expand at will. New trend or simple technological demonstration?
A drop-down screen, which expands and folds on demand, to adapt to the needs of the user? This is the amazing concept that Lenovo presented at MWC 2023, the major international trade fair dedicated to mobility, which takes place in Barcelona from February 27 to March 2. The Chinese manufacturer has indeed unveiled two astonishing products with a variable geometry screen: a portable PC under its own name and a smartphone signed Motorola, the brand it bought in 2014. Admittedly, this is not for the hour only of prototypes – no question of seeing them land soon on the stalls! –, but these curious devices have the merit of bringing a touch of fantasy to two markets at half mast and lacking innovation, as evidenced by the fairly enthusiastic reception of visitors who saw them in demonstration.
Scrolling screen: fun technology with questionable utility
If it has no official name – and for good reason – the Rollable PC as Lenvo calls it looks like a classic laptop from the ThinkPad range. By default, its screen has a diagonal of 12.7 inches with a definition of 2024 × 1604 pixels in almost normal 4: 3 format. Almost, because it has no bottom border. In fact, just press a button on the edge of the device for a system of motors and rails to start and the rest of the screen, located under the keyboard, unfolds fully. to reach a diagonal of 15.3 inches for an aspect ratio of 8:3, in a definition of 2024 × 2368 pixels, the equivalent of two 16:9 screens placed one above the other . The operation is not instantaneous – it takes about ten seconds – and the result is quite destabilizing, with this screen in portrait mode – which obviously cannot be folded as is on the keyboard!
Logically nicknamed Rollable Phone, Motorola’s sliding screen smartphone is based on a similar principle. In folded mode, it looks like a small, almost square phone, with a 5-inch screen in 15:9 aspect ratio. Again, you have to use a button on the edge so that the screen unfolds by sliding to reach a 6.5-inch mode with a 22:9 ratio. Fun and impressive, even if the maneuver is slow and the whole fragile, due to the thinness of the slab.
Cautious, Lenovo presents these innovations as proof of concept – proofs of concept, in French –, just to show that the idea is feasible. It is not the first manufacturer to embark on this kind of project, Oppo and TCL having already presented prototypes of sliding phones, without marketing them. And, if the idea remains interesting, one can legitimately wonder about the real usefulness of this screen technology – not to mention its price and the physical problems it poses.
For the record, the concept of a roll-up screen is not really new: at IFA 2019, the major technology fair in Berlin, LG presented its Signature OLED R, a television with a flexible OLED screen that can be stretch on demand using an integrated motor to be displayed in whole or in part – in the form of a banner – or fold completely into its base – equipped in particular with the audio system and electronics – to blend into the background. A futuristic gadget that was marketed in its 65-inch version at around… 100,000 euros! Ah yes, showing off costs!