Lenovo’s MWC booth had something interesting up its sleeve with Motorola’s rollable smartphone concept, which according to some could be called the Moto Rizr. Yes, a nod to 2006’s iconic Motorola Rizr Z3 slider phone. The new concept unit has a 5-inch screen with a 15:9 format, which expands vertically to a 6.5-inch diagonal with a 22:9 format.
This means you can go from a mini-sized phone to a plus phone at the touch of a button, giving you both an easy-to-use one-handed phone and a larger screen for media consumption when needed. All it takes is one Double click on the power button. Although Motorola says that if there is a mass market device based on this, the controls may be different.
Motorola rollable concept profile
The display is a pOLED display manufactured by BOE and like all rollable and foldable displays brings its own set of durability issues. The panel wraps around the back of the device, leaving a small area of the screen available for notifications or as a camera viewfinder to view images.
Motorola concept camera scrollable interface
Another interesting thing is that the earpiece and selfie camera are actually hidden behind the panel so the screen scrolls down whenever you make/receive a call or want to take a selfie.
The scrollable mechanism automatically expands the view in apps like YouTube for a more immersive experience, as well as in the email app to give you a larger canvas to write on. Home screen icons and backgrounds also adjust when you expand or contract the screen.
Motorola’s rollable concept phone weighs a substantial 210 grams and packs a 3,000mAh battery – that’s pretty much all we get in terms of specs. It would be interesting to see where Motorola goes with this concept and how it plans to bring a rollable phone to market.
Motorola rollable concept
Durability is a big question mark with rollable devices even more so than foldable ones. The rollable display on this Motorola is always exposed, and just one drop could potentially ruin the whole experience. We also have to take into account the moving mechanism that rolls the screen up and down. Then again, rollable phones make better use of space in a more compact form factor, which is an enticing proposition.
