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Teardown of unreleased LG Rollable shows why rollable phones aren't a thing (arstechnica.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/hardware@lemmy.world
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LG almost released a rollable smartphone in 2021, and this is what it looked like inside.

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[–] 21 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This thing is so fucking cool. I'm surprised foldables survived but these didn't. I mean, I don't know what sort of technical hurdles something like this has, comparatively, but I really like the idea of a rollable screen versus a foldable one.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    The main difference seems to be that this requires a motor. It's a more complex mechanism so potentially more expensive and prone to failure than a foldable, and extending and retracting the screen uses battery power.

    But some people would prefer this to a thick and chunky foldable. And foldables put more strain on the screen material so the failure rate might even out.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago

    That's super fair, but I'd even be cool with a manual model. Like, sliding the back plate to unfurl the screen would also be sick, kinda like sliding phones. Especially if it came with a glass backplate like this one did. Just the ability to make my screen larger when I need the space, and dodging the creases would be awesome.

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