CES 2021: LG mocks “the world’s first mobile smartphone”

LG announced that it will launch the world’s first roll-up smartphone this year as it offered a look at the device at CES 2021 with a five-second teaser video.

The clip includes a smartphone that stays in landscape orientation as the screen moves from an expanded tablet-style form factor screen to a more compact chassis.

The hybrid phone is said to be based on flexible organic light emitting diode technology, which according to reports would be provided by the Chinese technology group BOE, although the details of the technology remain unclear. Speaking at CES, the company said Nikkei Asia that the product would be officially launched later this year:

“Our management wanted to prove that it is a real product, as there were a lot of rumors surrounding the roll-up phone,” said Ken Hong, a spokesman for LG. “Since it will be launched at ESCES 2021‌, I can say it will be launched this year.”

LG’s roll-up display follows the moderate success of Samsung’s folding smartphones and comes when LG’s phone business is having financial problems due to stiff competition from Samsung, Huawei and Apple.

Apple has explored roll-up screens in the past, based on company patents. In March 2020, a patent attributed to Apple appeared in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office describing an “electronic device with flexible display structures.”

The patent details a flexible screen that can be wrapped around one or more internal roller mechanisms, allowing the screen to expand from the chassis. There is a rigid section left to house the printed circuit boards and other electronic components, but with the addition of the roll-up display layers.

“Elongated bistable support members can run along the edges of the screen or they can be superimposed by a central active area of ​​the screen to help strengthen and keep the screen in its extended position,” explains the patent, which conceives the technology as to adaptable to anything from a smartphone to a smartwatch.

As with all Apple patents, there are no indications that Apple plans to launch this device on the market, but it is interesting to see what kind of future solutions Apple is looking at as it seeks to innovate beyond current technologies in use of the consumer.