'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.

Comments

I want a Cell Display like on "The Expanse"

[mykepredko]

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?

Re:Completely missing the market

[JaredOfEuropa]

I tend to agree with all that: 5G could turn out like 4k televisions: the tech is there, prices are dropping and people are buying it... but the vast majority of people still do not have a compelling reason to select devices that support the tech, other than bragging rights.

That idea is supported by the statement that the smartphone market has stagnated. People do not upgrade as often as they used to. And I suspect rollable phones and 5G are not going to change that. But it’s silly to think that’s a reason to exit the smartphone market. It is however a reason to rethink your value proposition: instead of thinking about what features you can keep adding that will make customers upgrade their phones every 2-3 years, think about what you can do to make consumers select your phone to use for the next 5-7 years.