Looks like he was ready for prime time
Once one of the biggest Android OEMs in the space, LG has failed to keep its phones exciting and engaging for users. Before retiring from smartphone manufacturing in mid-2021, LG had one last trick up its sleeve: a rollable smartphone. It never launched, but someone got their hands on a prototype, so you can at least see what it would have looked like had it been released. We’ve already seen a hands-on video, but new images of the handset give us even more detail.
A South Korean YouTuber by the name of 뻘짓연구소 (via Mishaal Rahman), which roughly translates to “Jeoljit Research Institute” according to Google Translate, got its hands on LG’s elusive rollable phone. If launched, the phone would have been sold as “LG Rollable”. The phone itself has a finished retail box, charger and documentation. Likewise, the device shows no signs of being an early prototype or engineering sample, and even the software looks fairly finished and polished. It looks like the LG Rollable was pretty much ready for prime time when LG decided to ditch the smartphone market and subsequently pause its launch.
In terms of specs, the phone was reportedly launched with a Snapdragon 888 processor, along with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. This indicates that the phone would have had the specs to match the best smartphones in 2021. LG was planning to change its strategy again to give importance to the specs after launching both the LG Velvet and the LG Wing in 2020 with a Snapdragon 765G. It had a 6.8-inch POLED display that would have rolled into a 7.4-inch panel. The device also reportedly came with a 64MP camera and a 4,500mAh battery.
It’s unclear if its launch would have reversed LG’s fortunes, but we still wish it would come out anyway. New form factors are always nice to look at, after all.