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'We're Working On Rollable Phones,' Says LG CTO (tomsguide.com)
In a wide-ranging interview with Mark Spoonauer from Tom's Guide, CTO and president of LG Electronics, IP Park, said his company is working on both rollable and foldable smartphones, regardless of whether there's demand for them or not. Here's an excerpt from the report: Are you looking into rollable and foldable phones as well? We are exploring many different form factors for phones, including foldable and rollable. Because display technology has grown so much that it can make it into very flexible form factors. And with 5G, if the market requires much bigger screens, we'll need to fold it or roll it. So we'll explore.
A lot of people are saying the whole smartphone market has stagnated and there are even some who argue that LG should exit the business altogether. What's your reaction to that? The smartphone business is very tough because of the competition. Also because of the penetration. Everyone has a phone now, right? Everybody has a big screen, and everybody has many features that others have. I think this year could be the year of the upgrade in the smartphone industry because of 5G. 5G is going to be available this year, and people will come out with 5G phones. And 5G is different from LTE, not only because of bandwidth, but also latency. You may want to have even bigger screens on 5G phones because of the more content you can get. That could trigger different killer applications that you run on phones.
A lot of people are saying the whole smartphone market has stagnated and there are even some who argue that LG should exit the business altogether. What's your reaction to that? The smartphone business is very tough because of the competition. Also because of the penetration. Everyone has a phone now, right? Everybody has a big screen, and everybody has many features that others have. I think this year could be the year of the upgrade in the smartphone industry because of 5G. 5G is going to be available this year, and people will come out with 5G phones. And 5G is different from LTE, not only because of bandwidth, but also latency. You may want to have even bigger screens on 5G phones because of the more content you can get. That could trigger different killer applications that you run on phones.
why. what problem is this alleged to solve?
Rather than concentrate on making displays that are bigger/collapsible, what is the state of the art for getting displays that cause icons/information to appear in the air around the phone?
Is that complete pie in the sky or is there some way to get molecules of oxygen/nitrogen in the air to fluoresce and provide information outside the area of the phone and its physical display?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I think this year could be the year of the upgrade in the smartphone industry because of 5G. 5G is going to be available this year, and people will come out with 5G phones. And 5G is different from LTE, not only because of bandwidth, but also latency. You may want to have even bigger screens on 5G phones because of the more content you can get. That could trigger different killer applications that you run on phones.
I know this is BS speak (marketing) but still, almost everything is wrong in that statement.
First of all, most people won't care about 5G and won't upgrade until forced to (new phones will be 5G, and old phones will break or become too slow at some point). Just like when going from 3G to 4G, except that it is going to be even worse since the added bandwith isn't as useful.
5G definately won't require or even benefit from bigger screens. Altough he's right that phone screens keep getting bigger every year, but this has nothing to do with 5G. And finally, there won't be any killer 5G application, especially not this year.
The first 5G phones are probably going to suck (expensive, poor battery life, non-existing networks) anyways.
Thank god someone finally realized the problem with today's phones is they are all still to thick! Who needs a reasonable replaceable battery, a headphone jack, or even a functional antenna? I'm not sure I can handle 5g as my doctor told me people with my conditions should avoid anything over 2g. Please, please, please tell me they cost at least 1500 USD and I'm sold anyway. /s
that has been being pushed for as long as I have been alive, which has been a while.
What's the point? I don't want a roll-up phone. I want a phone that is rigid and goes into my shirt pocket without significant effort.
Anything else and I will not buy it. That means too big, too small, and too flippy floppy.
Caution: Contents under pressure
Well that's mighty nice of them...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Very true, but the MBAs dont know that. So its full steam ahead to shitsville
They can 2D print it on a toilet paper roll for all those basement dwellers who want to be close to a screen everywhere, but don't want to get the nasty bacteria from it.
... I dropped it on a hill and quickly lost it.
Give me a phone with flat edges any day.
Stuff no one asked for, with no market, developed at enormous expense.
But what about people in prison that need to smuggle a phone in their butt? If prison populations continue to increase, this might become the most important group of consumers.
Good with fruit filling or for snorting coke - not much else.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I think there are applications for rollable phone screens (not the whole phone) - assuming other things such as resolution, battery, audio jacks, etc are not compromised.
It does allow for larger screen sizes without becoming inconvenient to carry. Not everyone is thrilled by having to squint at tiny screen but making the whole phone bigger is also inconvenient to carry today. If they can separate the display from the brick, now form factors can evolve independently. Even if the screen is attached to the brick, having a rollable screen can give some options to make the brick reasonably shaped / sized. How much of the smartphone electronics are cramped in because they have to fit into a very thin rectangular prism?
You may want to have even bigger screens on 5G phones because of the more content you can get. That could trigger different killer applications that you run on phones. Seriously? We didn't bother to get 6 or 8 inch smartphones back in the day because LTE can't fill such huge screen with enough information? Mmokay.
What I'd personally love to have is a Victorinox smartphone with built-in can opener, bottle opener, corkscrew, knife, fork, scissors and saw.
They expect the market for phones and sex toys to converge.
I didn't see any details in TFA but I assume the minimum bending radius not going to be small, certainly not as small as we can currently make phones. And since there still has to be control electronics I'm imagining a rather large rod-like device where the screen pulls out. I can't imagine that being any better than the standard rectangular slab form factor. Rollable displays make more sense the larger size up in display you go imo.
My flip-phone did that for a decade. Replaceable battery too.
But I guess that's the problem.
Here's an idea...let's put more cameras on them. Everyone needs more selfie cameras.
That could trigger different killer applications that you run on phones.
I want my phone to be a thin client that streams 1080p video from a cloud computing cluster whenever I wake it. All my presses can be sent over the network, it's processed, and the video is sent back. It's the future of cell phone privacy and performance! /s
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
They've had rollable phones since the 80s.
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You can roll you phone into a straw for boba tea or coke.
This is a solution looking for a problem. There is nothing wrong with the way smartphones currently operate and I see no need for a smartphone that you can roll-up or fold. The bottom line is that we've passed peak smartphone and everyone involved in this sector of electronics is desperately searching for new sources of growth where there is simply none to be had. I am not about to fork over the kinds of money that an electronics company would want for such a gadget anyway. As it is, I refuse to pay more than 200.00 for a phone as I don't see the point. Nobody really needs a flagship device anyhow. Instead, people have convinced themselves that they need an iPhone or high end Android and have bought into the marketing hype hook, line, and sinker. Someone once said that a marketing guru might need the 4K camera of an iPhone and I replied that any marketing/creative professional worth their salt would have a D-SLR camera.
Is it too much to ask for a phone to be in the 4.5"-5.2" range keeping it small enough for it to be gripped securely while still being able to reach every point of the screen with your thumb, have dual SD and dual sim card capability, a radio that supports all international 4G and 3G bands, has a replaceable 15,000mHa or larger battery so I don't have to find a way to charge it every few hours if I actually do anything with it, has the bootloader completely unlocked and comes stock with a completely stock version of Android, headphone jack and is waterproof?
My positively ancient Kyocera Hydro was waterproof and had a headphone jack, replaceable battery and SD card, back in 2012, oh, and it's plastic screen allowed it to be dropped onto concrete and gravel multiple times throughout it's life and not break.
Everyone's going off about foldable/rollable phones. Aside from the fact that that should prevent some types of crush/bend damage (sitting down with your phone in your back pocket at a weird angle), I'm not sure how much value is there.
OTOH, I do feel like LG is really underrated when it comes to phones generally. Samsung gets all the limelight (so much so that I've had to explain/clarify to a few folks that my Android phone is the same as their "Samsung" when it comes to being an alternative to Apple), but LG really does make good hardware. I've been a user of theirs since the original LG "The V", up through the EnV, the Voyager, and into the G2/G3/G5 and now V20.
Although Apple has finally caught up (and although the "killer app" of Snapchat is still horrible on Droid), LG's camera quality is absolutely amazing, especially in low light conditions. If you take a lot of difficult shots or are in dark environments, they've always provided a reliable, strong capture that I sometimes get comments on.
The other thing is that they're one of the few manufacturers still often pushing removable batteries. This gives you a lot more options for managing power consumption if you're taking trips or going through extended uses. It also makes direct extended batteries possible, which will be far superior to add on battery packs.
In short, if you're looking for an Android device and want options besides Samsung, take a look at the recent LG stuff. You might like it.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Does it have a phone jack? Does it have a removable battery? Can you roll the phone into a tube small enough to fit in Mark Spoonauer's anal cavity?
P.S. Also, does it run Linux?
I don't want one. Never will. What a waste of R&D.
or are you just happy to see me?