OPPO showcases 'rollable' concept phone that turns into a tablet – no bending needed Smartphone brand OPPO has shown off its first "rollable" concept phone – though at this stage it isn't clear if this will go into full blown production. The OPPO X 2021 allows the user to extend the screen area without having to physically bend the display in half, as is the case with an ordinary foldable phone. In regular …
People have different use-cases to me, I know, and I attempt to keep that in mind.
However, when I think of 'out of the house tablets', the first use-case that comes to mind is keeping commuters entertained, but they mostly already carry a bag for other items - so can easily accommodate a conventional 9" 3:2 ish tablet (iPad Mini or equivalent).
Another use case is when you're running around a wild west theme park and the UI you need to quickly diagnose a killer robot requires more screen than a phone can give you.
Maybe folding screens will find their place in making a laptop fit into a small handbag instead of a satchel or rucksack? That's the sort of thing Weird Sony have done, back when they still made VAIOs (they made a folding dual screened Android tablet, they made a Windows net book with the screen no taller than the keyboard, heck they even made a Windows XP tablet with the keyboard spilt either side of the screen.)
> Does anyone still make 'interesting' laptops, or are they all just focused on making MacBook Air clones?
Since VAIO ceased to be Sony, we've had 'tent mode' laptops and convertible tablets-come-laptops from Lenovo, MS and others - many of which I can see sensible uses for. But no, since then no big player has made the kind of batshit crazy laptops (or handheld PCs) that Sony used to.
It wasn't just that Sony made batshit crazy designs, but that they were really well crafted batshit crazy designs.
I can go to a Chinese tat bazaar today and buy some shoddily made crazy shit, but only Sony put the craft in to nutter.
[As well of course of making some serious and sober professional AV gear, and the only laptops that Steve Jobs considered allowing OSX to be licensed to. Sony's FM radios have just been the definitive article for decades. Last time I heard decent audio out of a standalone TV was a big Sony CRT. FireWire (can't remember what Sony called it). Minidiscs. RX 100 camera. Laptops with external GPUs]
He was referring to the brother of a famous Columbian cocaine dealer who is selling a self-branded, gold plated Chinese folding phone for about half what the manufacturer sells it for... one theory a Reg reader put forward was that it was money laundering.
The marketing video featured more women in bikinis than a Samsung washing machine press event from 2010.
The problem isn't just nascent tech, it's also because nobody has as yet come up with a decent argument why you should buy one.
"Because it's cool" doesn't even cut it for Apple, so beginners in that game have even less of a hope, especially when it then involves flaky tech.
Don't get me wrong, as a concept I think it's brilliant and I can maybe see foldable displays become some sort of wristband which would be good because I found smartwatches and my thick fingers don't go well together, but as yet I don't see much beyond.
Maybe it'll come to me after a lot of beer.
I agree that I have no use for this. But I have to admit that while I found folding-screen phones stupid and completely uninteresting, for some reason this one strikes me as useless but curiously appealing anyway. If someone gave me one free I'd keep it.
I would prefer that it had a flip cover for the screen in the retracted position, though, since it can't take a screen protector. I've never broken the screen of a phone, but I have cracked an add-on screen protector once or twice.
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