While foldable displays might have been the focus a few years ago, it seems that we are starting to move towards other forms of flexible displays, such as rollable ones. LG has teased that they are working on a smartphone with a rollable display, but it seems that they are not alone in this endeavor.
For CES 2021, TCL has also taken the wraps off their own rollable display, in which they actually demoed it in action which you can see in the video below. The company has actually shown off two demos – one of which is a 6.7-inch smartphone that can be rolled out to a 7.8-inch display, and the other is a display that when rolled out resembles a scroll, but can then be expanded to become a 17-inch tablet.
https://twitter.com/phonewisdom/status/1348727020461596672
It’s actually quite mesmerizing to watch because for the longest time, we have thought of displays as being rigid things that break when bent, so for it to continue operating when it is being rolled up is actually pretty cool to see. It might also be a better solution to foldable displays which are quite thick and bulky, where a rollable display on the other hand could be made to be quite slim.
While these are currently demos of prototypes, TCL claims that they plan to unveil their first official rollable product later this year, so we’ll have to wait and see what kind of implementation the company has planned for this technology.