LG to release a phone with rollable display that extends to the sides

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Despite that LG was first to announce a 6" flexible OLED display for commercial smartphone usage way back in 2013, it was Samsung and Huawei coming up with foldable phone designs last year that, while experiencing teething pains, could actually be bought from a store.

At roughly that time, LG also teased its next generation of curved and even cable batteries that will be needed to power devices with these flexible displays, and not just flaunting the R&D side if things, but rather saying LG Chem is ready to start mass production of the battery types it listed.

Of course, its foldable phones never materialized but some of the battery designs for them like the stepped battery that stacks two modules together, made it in phones in some shape or form. Now, however, LG is preparing to one-up everyone and release a... phone with rollable display as a commercial endeavor "early next year," reports The Elec.

LG rollable display phone release

LG's rollable phone has been rumored for a while now, and it even had a patent attached to it, depicting something akin to a pen that has a display tucked into it for when you need it. In reality, the thing will probably be larger and more cumbersome than the patent depiction, but will still be very, very interesting as a first proof of concept.

Next in line, and the freshest of LG's rollable phone patents, is the hybrid device that can be used as a phone with a smaller display size, then a section of the display can be pulled out on the right until the thing reaches a tablet size, and then it can be stretched even further, then bent to become a netbook of sorts.

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Now, which one of these concepts has made the cut, remains to be seen, but LG has codenamed the undertaking Project B, and is already begun prototype production at its remaining Korean factory in Pyeongtaek, tip insiders.

The display itself will be made from BOE with LG's input, the same ones that made the foldable panel of Huawei's acclaimed Mate Xs bendy phone. According to those same sources, " foldable displays need to withstand consistent pressure at a small area, but rollable displays can dissipate the pressure to a wider area," so "a rollable display isn’t necessarily more difficult to achieve than foldable ones," and BOE already has plenty of experience with those.

Heck, LG has even demonstrated one rollable panel of its own making a long time ago, albeit at a time when it was still angling to be a viable competitor in the foldable handset business, and in the phone industry overall.

Instead of fighting in the same space as Samsung and Huawei, however, LG has apparently revamped its strategy to create brand new phone niches and perhaps be a first mover in new markets created by innovative form factors.

First in line is a rotating phone with two displays codenamed Wing which will be released in the second half of the year, and was just confirmed again in the current publication about the rollable display device. Its price is expected to be around $800, so LG is obviously not planning anything else but the rotating dual display to be the "wow" factor of the Wing phone.

Next in LG's new strategy of phones is the rollable Project B phone in question which will be extending display to the sides when needed, and in the first half of 2021 LG will be introducing a flagship device called Rainbow.