Lenovo reveals rollable laptop and smartphone screens Lenovo has staged its annual Tech World gabfest and teased devices with rollable OLED screens that shrink or expand as applications demand. The company emitted the video below to show off its rollables. We've embedded and set the vid to start at the moment the rollable phone is demoed. The rollable laptop demo starts at the 53 …
All these foldable tech phones are expensive, fragile and lumpy gimmicks. The Samsung Z fold phones being a case in point - 2x as thick as a regular phone with a greater propensity to break due to the scratchy screen and difficulty of protecting the device. Yeah I guess it's great you have a (small) tablet if you need one, but the rest of the time it's a brick with a crappy outside screen.
What purpose is this Lenovo phone / laptop demo even serving a roller / slide mechanism? If it were a general production device (instead of a mockup) it would need to be a thicker case, bulge or wedge shape to accommodate the roller just so the screen can grow an inch or two. Not to mention the likelihood that grit, dust, makeup, would get behind the screen and into the roller mechanism ultimately destroying it. I wonder how many people would pay a premium for that.
I don't get it either. It's neat, it's cutting edge R&D, but then so a supersonic car, and I don't need one of those either. I'm a consumer of their products, I have a Moto phone and a Lenovo tablet, but at no point have I wished for them to fold, or to have some complex gears. I dig Steampunk, but cogwheels in my phone? Both were pretty inexpensive devices, and offered something I was struggling to find unless I was willing to pay flagship prices, the phone is a Moto G Pro Stylus, and and the M8 Tablet has a SIM slot. Manufacturers need to offer us things that are useful (like the Lenovo Freestyle App, if only it worked on my device), casting, sharing, extra screens, using mobiles as scratchpads and pointing devices, and while we can do all that, it needs to get slicker.
Absolutely. Who wouldn't want a laptop that "grows" into a tall portrait-style display then shrinks back to landscape shape for closing and carrying? You still get the width that you normally get with any laptop, but now can see much more of a document or web page without scrolling. As screens get wider, so web pages add more unscrollable shit to the top and bottom of sites meaning we view the page through a narrow letterbox, especially on average laptops.
The prototypes and early production foldables show some promise and are giving the designers and engineers some real world experience of the problems. They will probably overcome them eventually.
Bob Newhart had a few points to make about marketing early inventions and prototypes.
I have a Samsung Z Flip phone, and actually quite like it. Sure it's a bit of a gimmick, but I partly bought it because I want more R&D done in the area.
So I applaud this type of development and thinking. Is it more than a gimmick? Maybe not for now, but it does require solving issues and problems, and will potentially lead to better stuff down the line.
It also creates more competition for this stuff, which again will hopefully further the development.
Would I buy these particular things? Well no. But that's more because I still haven't forgiven, nor trust, Lenovo after the Superfish issue. A screen that tucks itself away is cool, even if it currently comes with impractical drawbacks.
I would definitely be tempted by a flip phone if it were reliable and at a price I would be willing to pay (which is way less than the current cost). for me the killer feature is that it takes up only 1/2 as much space in your pocket but I would also imagine they are (or could be made) more resilient to damage because the screen is not exposes when it's folded
I'm more tempted by the ones the size of a standard smarthone but opens out, book like, to give double the screen area. But then I use mine mainly for work and double sized screen would mean I could do more of my work stuff on the phone more easily then getting the laptop out. But that's just my particular work methods and use case. I rarely spend hours in front of the screen. I'm more likely just updating the days field visits and ordering parts after each site visit. Current smartphone screens are just a bit too small for those tasks. Or the web-app/web page designers don't really target phone users as well as they might.
Nobody wants a phone that gets slightly wider, which is why they aren't selling this.
But if they made a 16:9 (ish) device that unrolled the narrow part so that it can became the wide part and was now a larger 16:9 there will be interest in that, though more for a smartphone that becomes a small tablet than a small tablet that becomes a bigger tablet.
Of course it would have to do it without sacrificing too much battery (that rolled up OLED will be taking up interior space) and without driving up cost to a crazy level. If an unrollable version of what would otherwise be a $1000 phone sells for $2000, it will forever remain a niche product. While I could see a use for unrolling my phone into something larger if I'm watching a video it wouldn't be worth $1000. Or even $500, but I could see it would be worth $500 to enough people that might get it out of the niche and go mainstream.
I'd also be concerned about the moving parts since it isn't just unrolling the screen, it is expanding the rear of the case. Lots to go wrong, especially if dust gets in the joints of the case or you accidentally trigger the unroll when it is in your pocket and it tries to push but can't fully expand.
Now a laptop that's sized like a 12" but could expand its display to be like say an 18" I would be all over that!
I would find a wristband/underarm roller or any device designed for a specific usecase where roll-tech has a purpose more interesting than a normal, already existing device transformed just to implement this roll-tech at all.
Not that it would not be somewhat cool/hilarious to go town crier style, unroll a tech-pergament and go full "Hear ye!".
But apart from the mechanical issues, i also cant see much apart the powerpoint-poster mentioned by @HildyJ, much less so as tablets already show the downsides of not having a proper keyboard/input device implemented (bluetooth accessories not taken into account).
The talk here has been about UNrolling the screen.
Think of its utility the other way around.
At your office you select a desktop-relevant size.
But when travelling in a sradine can, as seat pitch and widths shrink (not just airlines), your preferred screensize impinges on your neighbour.
So you roll it up, as appropriate.
Think of it as a socially responsible electronic device.
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