Motorola VP confirms company working on a foldable smartphone

Source: Engadget

The next big trend in the smartphone world is foldable phones, and Motorola has announced that it has no intention of coming later than everybody in the market. The company has confirmed that it is working on a foldable smartphone and it is said to resemble the iconic Razr phone.

After Samsung and Huawei, Motorola would be the third major smartphone manufacturer to join the league of companies manufacturing foldable smartphones. Motorola VP of Global Product Dan Dery told Engadget that the company had started working on a foldable smartphone a long time ago. He stated that Motorola has been doing a lot of iterations of its version of the foldable smartphone. Dery did not reveal any specifications or design details of the foldable phone but stated that the company would not pursue the design of having a foldable screen on the outside. Motorola did not want to offer a foldable phone that would quickly get scratches on the outside which is why the company has been testing a plastic OLED device with a plastic film on top of it.

"The fact that you're touching [that kind of display, like MateX] with your nails is scratching it. It has a short life right away; it starts dying the day you unpack it. But it's beautiful. That first day, it's beautiful."

This statement falls in line with a patent that the company was granted in January this year, as reported by Engadget.  The design of the foldable smartphone in the patent is similar to the Motorola Razr V3 clamshell design. This assumption seems to be correct as Dery stated that the foldable phone might have a z-hinge with a single flexible display that would fold twice. Meaning there was be three displays, and the third screen could be used in phone mode when it is wrapped. 

Dery explained that Motorola’s foldable phone would be designed in a way that the phone could have a big display that could be easily folded and kept inside a pocket. Motorola’s parent company Lenovo is in the tablet business, which is why the company is working on such a pocketable design. Dery also stated that if the problems that the company is currently facing with z-hinge design are solved, there could be a possibility of a small display folded down into something tiny.

It is expected that the company would unveil the phone sometime this year. There were rumours that the company would reveal the Razr-like foldable smartphone at MWC 2019 where Samsung and Huawei unveiled their versions of foldable smartphones.