TCL is ready to wow us with more folding phones. But don’t get too excited. It’s only showing us concept devices, not products it actually plans on launching yet. TCL has unveiled two prototypes the results of its experiments to see what’s possible with flexible screens. One of these is what TCL calls its tri-fold tablet concept, which is a screen that folds twice to create three panels. The more interesting of the pair is what the company says is the “world’s first rollable extendable display smartphone concept.”
A trifold device that can unfold from a 6.65-inch phone into a full-size, 10-inch tablet, and a very early concept for its sliding, rollable phone that leaked in February which wasn’t actually a functional device, but rather a dummy unit, complete with a paper screen.
It’s still very much a proof-of-concept device, but with a working unit, you can start to get some ideas of what those concepts are. Unlike the Galaxy Fold or the Huawei Mate X, the trifold is arguably the first model that highlights the initial promise of a foldable device it turns a phone into a tablet, not just a wider phone.
Fully unfolded, the trifold has a 10-inch screen bigger than a full-size 9.7-inch iPad. You can start watching a video on the smaller, regular screen, then pop it out to the more enjoyable tablet mode without carrying around a second device. Open the calendar app on “phone” mode and see your day’s schedule; expand it to tablet to see your whole month view. Even the halfway “two-screen” mode is interesting: it feels perfect for reading an ebook on two pages and can be easily propped up using the “third” screen as a stand.
TCL’s other concept device the rollable, sliding mock-up is allegedly meant to help solve some of those issues. But if the trifold is an early, proof-of-concept prototype, then the sliding phone is even less real. The “unit” I got to see was a nonfunctional dummy unit with a paper screen, although TCL did have a video of a proper, motorized model that it says it has working in a lab in Japan.
Neither of these devices are meant to be actual products at this point. TCL isn’t saying when or even if you’ll be able to buy either of these phones. Nor is it clear that even if TCL does make foldable products down the line, they’ll look anything like these prototypes. The company says that it’s experimenting with dozens of different form factors.
