Forget the book-style foldables like the Galaxy Fold, Huawei Mate XS or the flip phones like the Galaxy Z Flip and Moto Razr— all these have been seen as the first wave of foldable devices. These have turn out by and large to be a bit… disappointing. TCL is already looking ahead with a pair of foldable and rollable prototypes that imagines what the future of phones could look like.
TCL is already looking in the future with a pair of foldable and rollable prototypes that imagines what the future of phones could look like. The company has shown off two new prototypes: a trifold device that can unfold from a 6.65-inch phone into a full-size, 10-inch tablet, and a very early concept for its sliding, rollable phone.
It’s still very much a proof-of-concept device, but with a working unit, you can start to get some ideas of what those concepts are. Unlike the Galaxy Fold or the Huawei Mate X, the trifold is arguably the first model that highlights the initial promise of a foldable device: it turns a phone into a tablet, not just a wider phone.
When its fully unfolded, the TCL’s trifold has a 10-inch screen — bigger than a full-size 9.7-inch iPad. You can start watching a video on the smaller, regular screen, then pop it out to the more enjoyable tablet mode without carrying around a second device. Open the calendar app on “phone” mode and see your day’s schedule; expand it to tablet to see your whole month view. Even the halfway “two-screen” mode is interesting: it feels perfect for reading an ebook on two pages and can be easily propped up using the “third” screen as a stand.
Though the tablet is thin when fully unfolded, the “phone” mode is super thick, the trifold shows just how hard it’s going to be to turn these ideas into reality.
