Motorola’s rollable phone concept grows as if by magic

Foldable phones are old hat, it’s time for rollables instead. That’s what someone at Motorola clearly said when coming up with this stunning concept.

Shown off at parent company Lenovo’s Tech World event, this Motorola concept shows a phone that starts out with just a 5-inch screen and then grows into something much bigger – an iPhone 14 Pro Max-like 6.5-inch monster. And it does it all without a crease in sight.

Whereas foldable phones tend to have an unsightly crease down their middle, there’s none of that with a rollable handset. And while most rollable concepts we’ve seen look like small phones that turn into tablets, there’s something different going on here. Motorola’s approach isn’t to create a hybrid device – instead, it wants to build a pocketable phone that can then grow to fill more demanding needs when unrolled. If you’re tired of your super-phone filling your pocket and making it awkward to sit down, this is the future for you.

It’s an interesting approach and one that we haven’t seen so far. It’s also kind of magical to see a phone grow at the touch of a button, even if it’s likely to be a few years yet before we get to do it ourselves. This is a concept, nothing more, and Motorola isn’t ready to sell it just yet. But that was also the case with foldable phones not so long ago and now Samsung and Motorola, among others, can’t stop making them. Who knows how many rollable phones will be on the market in five years?

Maybe then Apple will have gotten around to selling a foldable iPhone.