Motorola Unveils A Wild Smartphone Concept You Can Wear Like A Watch
We are firmly in the era of foldable phones that come equipped with flexible OLED screens. Motorola thinks it can make a leap with a phone-like device that can wrap around your wrist, somewhat like a ginormous watch, but without looking tacky. At the Lenovo Tech World 2023 event, the company showcased a device that it won't classify as a phone but calls it "an adaptive display concept." But it does look like a clamshell foldable phone, similar to Motorola's own Razr 40, so there's that.
The device in question features a 6.9-inch plastic OLED (or pOLED) panel with a respectable FHD+ resolution that borrows tech from foldable and rollable panels. It can wrap around the wrist, bend in tent mode, and even stand upright by folding only a small portion of the screen, leaving a 4.6-inch screen area open for human interaction. It's stunning to look at, especially with that ridged rear panel that has a Kvadrat-inspired fiber finish.
As the holy rule for all "concept" devices says, "Thou shall not pin your hopes on it." Motorola won't say if or when its cool concept will become a mass-market device. But given the current pace of development in the foldable screen tech, Motorola's concept is in a far more practically realistic position than any other device like it before.
Not a first, but in the right era
Motorola isn't the first brand attempting a phone-wristwear hybrid concept. In 2016, Motorola's parent company, Lenovo, showcased a phone called Cplus that featured a similar ribbed back and a foldable screen approach that wrapped around the wrist like a smartwatch. It was oddly tall, but unfortunately, it was a concept that never saw the light of the day as a commercially available device.
Next in line was the Nubia Alpha, a stylish retro-futuristic device that was a smartphone at heart but looked more like a wristband with a flexible display strip. It went on sale in 2019, but the poor app situation, unreliable fitness tracking, and an asking price of $449 killed the whole idea at the first generation itself.
Motorola's press release mentions Android, which is a sliver of hope that turning the concept into reality won't take much effort on the software optimization side. All we need is a clean, always-on display that offers the right kind of situation-aware user experience when the device is put on a wrist. Fingers crossed!