Motorola’s Moto Rizr Roll-Up Concept Hands-On

Lenovo’s MWC booth had something interesting up its sleeve with Motorola’s rollable smartphone concept, which some say might be called the Moto Rizr. Yes, a nod to the iconic Motorola Rizr Z3 slider phone from 2006. The new concept device features a 5-inch display with a 15:9 aspect ratio that stretches vertically at a diagonal of 6, 5 inches with an aspect ratio of 22:9.

Motorola roll-up concept

This means you can switch from a mini phone to a plus phone at the push of a button, giving you both an easily usable one-handed phone and a bigger screen for media consumption when needed. Just press the power button twice. Although Motorola says that if there is a consumer device based on it, the controls may be different.

Motorola roll-up concept profile

The display is a pOLED display made by BOE and, like all rollable and foldable displays, comes with its own set of durability issues. The panel wraps around the back of the device, leaving a small area of ​​the screen available for notifications or as a camera viewfinder to preview shots.

Motorola Rollable Concept Camera Interface

Another interesting element is that the earpiece and the selfie camera are actually hidden behind the panel, so the screen lowers whenever you make/receive a call or want to take a selfie.

The roll-up mechanism automatically expands the display in apps like YouTube for a more immersive experience as well as in the messaging app to give you a bigger canvas to type on. Home screen icons and wallpapers also realign when you zoom in or out.

Motorola’s concept rollable phone weighs 210 grams and packs a 3,000mAh battery – that’s about all we get spec-wise. It would be interesting to see where Motorola goes with this concept and how it plans to bring a rollable phone to market.

Motorola roll-up concept

Durability is a big question mark with rollable devices even more so than foldables. This Motorola’s roll-up screen is still exposed and a single drop could potentially destroy the whole experience. We also need to consider the rolling mechanism that rolls the screen up and down. Again, rollable phones make better use of space in a more compact form factor, which is an enticing proposition.