Motorola makes some of the best foldable phones around, especially flip foldables – see our Motorola Razr Plus 2024 review for details – and it looks as though a future Razr handset might come with a motorized hinge.
This comes from a patent spotted by Notebookcheck, and while patented technology is never guaranteed to actually make it to consumers, patents do give us a good idea of what companies are working on and exploring.
The patent includes diagrams showing the motorized hinge in action during video calls. With a flip phone half closed and angled to show your face, for example, the hinge could automatically adjust to keep your face in the frame.
This would work whether the foldable was in 'tent' mode (with the hinge at the top) or in a more conventional 'laptop' mode (with the hinge at the bottom) – though the former option would require a relatively smooth surface to work effectively.
Accessories too
As well as an integrated motorized hinge, the patent also mentions a separate clip-on motor that could be sold as an accessory – potentially enabling you to add the same functionality to an older phone like the Motorola Razr 2023.
Motorola suggests that this motorized solution would work better than features built into video-calling software, as it would enable users to be tracked with greater accuracy across a greater area – rather than relying on zoom and ultrawide cameras.
We can also imagine the hinge being used to automatically close the phone when you're done with it (or automatically open it when you need to see the screen) – perhaps through a voice command or a tap on your smartwatch.
Foldable phones are already incredibly complicated pieces of technology, so we'll have to wait and see whether or not Motorola can add even more complexity to the mix – but this patent does give us an idea of what the foldable phones of the future might look like.
