A BIZARRE concept smartphone that folds in on itself twice could give us a glimpse of the future of mobiles.
Handsets are all alike these days, but Chinese company TCL has simulated a sci-fi cell of the future.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to invent new functionalities for smartphones or to revolutionize their design.
This is bad news for phone manufacturers who still want you to upgrade every few years.
Smartphone companies like Samsung, Huawei and Motorola have therefore started to market tablets that fold in half up to the size of a smartphone.
Now the television brand TCL has created a conceptual device that folds in on itself twice.
The handset works on Google’s Android – like all other foldable phones to date.
This foldable design is not just a gadget.
It gives the handset a 6.65 inch screen in phone mode and a gigantic 10 inch screen in tablet form.
This is the main advantage of foldable phones: portability.
Screen sizes on smartphones have exploded in recent years, when we are obsessed with pretty Instagram photos and Netflix movies.
But it is not realistic to ask someone to put an 8 or 9 inch screen in their pocket or purse.
By integrating hinges into a phone, you can offer a huge screen the size of a tablet while keeping the handset in a pocket.
The downside is that the phone is thicker – but the foldable handsets will inevitably decrease in the years to come.
These foldable phones are also very expensive, usually costing thousands per device.
And building them is also full of pitfalls: Samsung, Huawei and Motorola have all received complaints about a “poor quality” design.
Ultimately, high-quality handsets that resemble the TCL mobile concept could become a reality.
The bad news is that TCL has not confirmed if this phone will be sold.
Instead, it seems designed to give us a glimpse of what’s going to happen with the phone models of the future.
In other news, Huawei’s Mate Xs foldable phone costs thousands.
A bizarre foldable Microsoft “tablet phone” with two giant screens has been spotted in public.
And here’s what a foldable iPhone might look like.
What do you think of this high-tech mobile? Let us know in the comments!
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