Motorola seems to have called in a bit of the 90s kid spirit with its new slap bracelet smartphone concept. That’s right: When you’re not operating the prototype with both hands, you can curl it around your wrist, transforming it into a watch-like wearable device. You can also make it stand vertically on a flat surface, though that’s far less exciting.
The smartphone maker and somewhat recent Lenovo subsidiary showed off the concept at Lenovo Tech World 2023. What makes the unnamed device so versatile is the fact that it rolls into various shapes. “This new conceptual device uses a FHD+ pOLED display that can be bent and shaped into different forms depending on users’ needs,” Motorola wrote. “This adaptive display concept further builds upon the display and mechanical innovations from our foldable and rollable devices in both the smartphone and PC categories.”
Depending on the user’s specific needs, the device can be flattened into a standard smartphone, bent at the bottom to create a stand, or wrapped around a wrist to form a custom wearable display. When it’s flat, the device works like any other 6.9-inch display; when it’s put in the upright stand position, it runs a compact form of Android that spans 4.6 inches of the screen. Once the prototype is bent into a C shape around the user’s wrist, it switches to an even smaller Android display that Motorola Razr users will find familiar.
The concept is a bit more sophisticated than Lenovo’s own bendy prototype, which it introduced in 2016. That device could also roll into a C shape and flatten back out, but according to people who saw the prototype in person, it cracked audibly whenever it was bent. Concept images also make Lenovo’s version look a bit cheap, while the Motorola-branded prototype’s flexible plastic at least looks like something you’d want to pay hundreds of dollars for. Lenovo took the rolling phone idea a step further last year with Rollable, a shapeshifting smartphone capable of adjusting its own length, but there wasn’t a fun bracelet option with that one. (It never actually hit shelves, either.)
As always, it’s important to note that Motorola’s slap bracelet-like device isn’t guaranteed to become a real product—but in the age of folding smartphones, you never know.
