TCL, the budget TV company that also makes smartphones under the BlackBerry Mobile and Alcatel brands, seems to be working on foldable smartphones as well. One of its concepts involves a foldable smartphone that can actually bend into a smartwatch. Sounds pretty neat, doesn’t it?
CNET reports that TCL is working on at least five devices with flexible displays. They include two smartphones, two tablets, and a flexible smartphone that can bend into a smartwatch. The information is based on company renderings and patent image filings.
One of the tablets has an inward folding display while the other has an outward folding panel much like the Royole Flexpai. The two smartphones also have similar folding variants but both seem to bend at the horizontal line like a conventional flip phone.
The last of these three flexible phones appears to be a tall and slender device that’s capable of curving into a cuff around a wrist. It’s not a design that you’d attach to conventional foldable smartphones, but TCL has evidently been toying with the idea.
It will be a while before any of these devices see the light of day. A company executive told the scribe last month that TCL’s first foldable device won’t arrive before 2020.
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