The Motorola 'bendy phone' wraps around your wrist. Here's how it works.
The Motorola bendy phone is what most of us secretly need. After all, clutching one's device all day can get tiring. That's why Lenovo, the parent company of Motorola, announced a foldable phone concept that lets you wrap your phone around your wrist.
The operative word here is concept. You may not see this phone in the near future, but it proves that Lenovo is still committed to experimenting with foldable screens à la the ThinkPad X1 Fold (the world's first foldable PC.) That being said, here's everything we know about Motorola's bendy phone so far.
How does Motorola's bendy phone work?
The Motorola bendy phone can be bent into several postures, including a tent-like mode that is reminiscent of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip series.
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In this position, you can take advantage of the phone's compact version while utilizing its 4.6-inch display. Similar to the Galaxy Z Flip line, you can use tent mode to take hands-free photos.
As mentioned at the outset, it can also be wrapped around your wrist, allowing you to have hands-free access to your texts, photos, emails, apps, and more.
You may be wondering, "How does this all work?" Well, Lenovo said this concept consists of a "full HD+ pOLED" display. In other words, the company plans to utilize a 2,220 x 1080-pixel plastic OLED screen, making it more flexible than your typical OLED glass screen. Plastic OLED screens, according to OLED Info, are "lighter, thinner and more durable compared to glass-based displays." They're more energy efficient and cost-effective, too, but keep in mind that they're more susceptible to scratches.
MotoAI is a major facet of the bendy phone
With the Motorola bendy phone, Lenovo is introducing a generative AI model that runs locally on the device, allowing users to have fun with their personal style. For example, you can take a photo of the outfit you're wearing and then have your phone — wrapped around your wrist — match your outfit of the day.
As The Verge pointed out, this wrist-wrapping phone concept isn't necessarily new. Motorola introduced something similar at Lenovo Tech World 2016. Seven years later, Motorola hasn't given up on the cuff-style concept. The tech outlet joked that it'll be 2030 and we will still see Lenovo hawking its bendy phone without a release date in sight.
But with the company being bold enough to unleash its X1 Fold in 2020, perhaps we'll see Lenovo's innovative moxie reappear once more — hopefully before hell freezes over.
Kimberly Gedeon, at Mashable since 2023, is a tech explorer who enjoys doing deep dives into the most popular gadgets, from the latest iPhones to the most immersive VR headsets. She's drawn to strange, avant-garde, bizarre tech, whether it's a 3D laptop, a gaming rig that can transform into a briefcase, or smart glasses that can capture video. Her journalism career kicked off about a decade ago at MadameNoire where she covered tech and business before landing as a tech editor at Laptop Mag in 2020.
