Tecno unveils its rollable phone concept at IFA 2023

IFA is now going on, and tech companies are showing off their new and exciting devices. Among these devices, companies are showing off concepts for potential devices, and Tecno is one of them. Tecno just showed off a rollable phone concept.

Samsung has already conquered the foldable phone market, but there’s another form factor that hasn’t come to fruition. That’s the rollable phone form factor. We saw some concepts over the past couple of years, one of the best-looking ones being from LG. However, as you can imagine, the company hasn’t made too much progress on it over the past few years.

Tecno shows off its rollable phone concept at IFA

With other companies working on rolling their phones, Chinese OEM Tecno is throwing in its hat. If you’re unfamiliar with this company, it’s a smartphone company that’s been gaining a bit of traction recently. Its parent company Transsion broke fifth place in global smartphone shipments during Q2 2023. Also, Android Headlines was able to review the Tecno Camon 20 Pro, and you can read it here.

Tecno showed off a new video showcasing its rollable phone concept. Named the Phantom Ultra, this phone will increase its size by rolling outward just like other concepts we’ve seen. When rolled, it will have a 6.55-inch display. However, when it unrolls via the single-drive motor, it will expand to a 7.11-inch size. That’s a little bit smaller than some of the unfolded displays in notebook foldables.

The full display has a resolution of 2,296 x 1,595 pixels. What’s neat is that when the screen is rolled, some of the display will spill over the side of the phone. This could be used as an Always On display. So, it will serve a purpose when not in use.

In order to unroll the device, you’ll need to press a button on the top of the phone. That might make it a bit tedious to use, as 6.55 inches is still a bit large.

This might be the preferred form factor for people who want a thinner device. Foldable phones are still struggling to be as thin as a regular phone. The Tecno Phantom Ultimate is about 9.1mm thick, which is thin compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s 14.6mm thickness.

Right now, this is just a concept phone, so there’s no telling if Tecno will actually bring it to the public. We’ll just need to keep our fingers crossed. Rollable phones are harder to put together than foldable phones, and Tecno is definitely a smaller company. So, only time will tell.