“LG is expected to showcase its first foldable smartphone at CES 2019 in January”
If you haven’t been living under a rock lately, then you might know that several phone makers, including LG, are working on their foldable smartphones. The South Korean tech giant has already been granted patents for multiple foldable smartphone prototypes. Now, the brand has received a patent for yet another foldable smartphone from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Unlike the earlier such patents from the company that showcased a device with two or three foldable screens, the phone in the new trademark has a rollable display. The handset’s rollable screen rolls inside a spindle when the smartphone is not in use. The other side of the display is attached to a cylindrical handle, which can be used to pull it out from the spindle. The spindle attachment on the left side of the screen is expected to contain the necessary hardware like the SoC, memory, motherboard, camera, battery, and other components of the device.
The device in the patent seems to sport a large screen, almost the size of a tablet. Unfortunately, the patent hasn’t revealed anything else regarding the rollable phone, including its functionalities or exact hardware aspects.
It’s worth mentioning that recently, a trademark filing suggested that LG’s foldable smartphone could be called the Flex, Foldi, or Duplex. The brand applied for these names at EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) in November. If the reports are to be believed, LG will showcase its first foldable smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January next year. However, a recent Bloomberg report said LG does not plan to launch foldable phones in 2019, so it may be a while before we see this tech in consumer products.
