CES 2021: LG causes ‘the world’s first mobile smartphone’

LG announced that it will launch the world’s first rollable smartphone this year, as it offered a preview of the device at CES 2021 with a five-second video teaser.

The clip features a smartphone kept in landscape orientation while the screen rolls from an expanded tablet-shaped screen to a more compact chassis.

The hybrid device is based on the flexible light-emitting organic diode technology, which is being provided by the China BOE Technology Group, although the technology specifications remain unclear. Speaking at CES, the company said Nikkei Asia that the product would be officially launched later this year:

“Our management wanted to show that it is a real product, as there were a lot of rumors around the mobile phone,” said Ken Hong, a spokesman for LG. “As it was launched at ‌CES 2021‌, I can say that it will be launched later this year.”

LG’s scrollable screen follows the moderate success of Samsung’s foldable smartphones and comes at a time when the LG phone business is facing financial difficulties due to strong competition from companies like Samsung, Huawei and Apple.

Apple has exploited scrollable monitors in the past, based on company patents. In March 2020, a patent assigned to Apple appeared at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that describes an “electronic device with flexible display structures”.

The patent details a flexible screen that can be wrapped in one or more internal roller mechanisms, allowing the screen to expand outside the chassis. A rigid section remains to house the printed circuit boards and other electronic components, but with the addition of the scrollable display layers.

“Elongated bistable support members can run along the edges of the screen or can be overlaid by a central active area of ​​the screen to help harden and support the screen in its extended position”, explains the patent, which conceives the technology as adaptable to anything from a smartphone to a smartwatch.

As with all Apple patents, there is no indication that Apple has plans to bring such a device to the market, but it is interesting to see what kind of future solutions Apple is looking to innovate beyond the current technologies for using the consumer.