This week, the Mobile World Congress is showcasing various wild concepts of flexible displays, which are unlikely to become available. Motorola has revived the name “Moto Rizr” from its line of candybar slider phones in the early 2000s, to introduce its new rollable display phone. While the device was initially announced in October, Motorola is revealing more details at the MWC.
The Moto Rizr has a flexible POLED display covering the front, which rolls around the bottom edge and extends almost halfway up the back. Upon pressing a button, motorized internal components raise the top of the phone, lifting the screen with it. The back display rolls around the bottom edge, becoming part of the front, resulting in a 6.5-inch display that appears like a standard smartphone.
The sliding component of the phone is a fragile, wafer-thin rectangle housing the display. It can slide down a few millimeters from the closed position, revealing the phone body and its top bezel components, such as the front-facing camera and earpiece speaker. In the closed position, the display extends to the back and shows the top status bar or can work as a viewfinder mode for using the primary cameras like a selfie camera.
The phone’s display rolls up and down automatically based on the software’s activities, or users can tap the power button twice to do so manually. However, the motorized screen takes several seconds to open and close, which seems more like a gimmick than a useful feature. It might be frustrating and slow to wait for the screen to move up and down while multitasking with a messaging app.
Although the idea of a phone that is compact in the pocket but big in the hand is compelling, several practicality concerns exist. Like the Moto Razr, the flexible-display Moto Rizr has nothing to attach the display to the body of the phone for a large portion of the display length. The middle section of the screen must be free-floating for the sliding mechanism to work, and there is nothing holding it to the phone body. The display often lifts off the phone, exposing its sides, which might collect debris that damages it. Moreover, having a display that is not a rock-hard, flat glass slab and squishes under the finger feels unusual since we are used to such displays.
The “Moto Rizr” rollable phone has a problem with its delicate, soft display that is exposed on both the front and back when closed. This makes it vulnerable to scratches and damage from contact with surfaces. Huawei faced a similar issue with their flexible display phone and had to ship it with a protective case. Rollable phones also have limited battery capacity due to the need to pack in screen-expanding components and other phone components into a small body, leaving less space for a battery. Despite many concept designs, no one has yet shipped a rollable smartphone because of these limitations. The technology would require a significant battery breakthrough to be practical.
