Motorola’s new concept isn’t exactly a foldable, and it’s not a rollable... Maybe it’s a bendable?
At this point, we’re all familiar with smartphones that fold and we’re even seeing laptops jump in on the trend. Now Motorola is proving that there’s still room for innovation with a funky bracelet-like display that can completely bend around your wrist.
Motorola is calling it an “adaptive display concept,” since it can bend to fit a number of use cases, like being propped up or as a smart bracelet. It’s not the first time we’ve seen something like this — TCL previously explored this wild idea back in 2019. We haven’t seen anything like it go to market, but Motorola could change that since it has far more experience when it comes to foldables.
MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY
Motorola says it uses a pOLED display, which is basically an OLED built with plastic to achieve that crazy flexibility. We’re not sure of the limitations on just how far this thing can bend, but judging from images and videos, it looks like it has individual ribs to allow for different configurations.
Its most basic form is a standard smartphone that folds flat into a 6.9-inch display. From there, you can bend the device at different points to make it stand on its own. Propped up like this, it’s perfect for taking selfies or setting it up for displaying something similar to Apple’s Standby feature.
To really push it to the limit, Motorola’s device can completely bend around your wrist for a chunky smart bracelet look. As with every other tech company, Motorola is infusing AI so it can spit out freshly generated wallpapers, automatically blur out sensitive info, or even make crumpled-up receipts legible again.
THE WEIRDER, THE BETTER
Sure, it looks awkward and bulky around your wrist compared to a smartwatch and it doesn’t seem particularly comfortable, but this is just a concept after all, and what looks to be a very early stage one on top of that. There’s no word yet if Motorola plans on putting it into production. If Motorola does, get ready for people to gawk at that massive thing on your wrist.
There’s a slim chance that this bendable design will catch on like wildfire, but foldable smartphones took a while to build up their own cult following. It does prove that Motorola is very much invested in seeing what’s possible with flexible displays, beyond just the current foldables and rollables. Even if the Razr is struggling against the far more popular Samsung Galaxy Z Flip series, it’s good to know that Motorola is still willing to get weird with displays.
