Motorola shows off unique rollable phone concept

Motorola has shown off a new rollable phone concept at Lenovo Tech World 2022, and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.
We’ve seen a number of rollable concept phones over the years from the likes of LG (RIP), Oppo and TCL, but none of them have gone quite the same way as Motorola.
While most rollable concepts give you a ‘normal’ phone that rolls out into a mini-tablet, Motorola’s concept (via CNET) starts as a compact 5-inch phone before unfurling into a full-sized 6.5-incher. It is to the embryonic rollable phone market what the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is to the folding phone market. Kind of.
Particularly neat is the way that the wallpaper and home screen UI animate and expand in conjunction with the physical screen space. Indeed, the snippets we’ve seen of the display indicate that this is a fully functional phone, albeit one that you’re unlikely to see in shops.
This twist on the format had been predicted earlier in the year, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen material evidence of the concept.
Last month we received an unexpected hands-on video of the cancelled LG Rollable, which never saw retail due to parent company LG’s regrettable exit from the smartphone market. That video showed a tantalisingly functional rollable phone concept.
Together with the Oppo X 2021 and TCL’s various concept phones, we’ve now seen a number of seemingly complete rollable prototypes without any ensuing retail product.
Might 2022 finally be the year that this changes? We’re not getting our hopes up.