With its foldable concept, Motorola’s Rizr has risen above anything else on display at this year’s MWC.

As smartphones hit the innovation plateau, rotatable displays offer a new segway to how these devices can evolve in the future. Tech companies have become more and more of a threat over the years, making most of their products boring and definitely mastering the “wow” factor. The iPhone 14 is the same as the previous generation and so is your Dell laptop.

But Motorola thinks they may have devices with removable screens that can pull the smartphone industry out of this slump. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Thursday, Motorola unveiled its foldable smartphone and allowed journalists to spend some time with the Motorola Razr.

The Motorola Rizr – not to be confused with the Moto Razr – is a smartphone with an expandable screen – from 5 inches to 6.5 inches – at the touch of a button. When in compact mode, the remaining half of the display is visible on the back and can be used as a clamshell-style foldable phone for taking selfies and viewing information.

The “6.5” POLED display uses many of our lessons learned from Razer, and the way the screen rolls onto the back of the device allows for many unique use cases, such as checking notifications, the clock, answering phone calls, or camera viewfinder previews. Jeff Snow, product innovation manager at Motorola, told indianexpress.com in an email interview on the sidelines of MWC 2023.

The Razr, which Motorola calls a proof-of-concept, isn’t trying to replace foldable devices like the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Motorola Razr. Instead, the Motorola Rizr offers an alternative view of the smartphone market with emerging form factors. Obviously, both rotating and flexible can coexist with their special advantages.

He added, “Instead of folding from a transparent scroll, with this rotatable technology we give users the full Android experience without sacrificing screen space whenever they want a compact, 5-inch screen.”

Whether it’s folding or rotating – the basic idea remains the same: how to give users more screen real estate and protect the phone. But of course, both folding and rotating screens have different applications at the surface level, which is why companies like Lenovo are experimenting with mobile devices that are expandable and don’t fold in half or open like a book.

The foldable smartphone market has been around for a few years, but the segment has taken off since the release of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and Motorola Razr. Early folding handsets, like other first-generation products, were cumbersome and had durability issues. But recent devices with foldable screens are more polished, though far from being as reliable as the tried-and-tested glass panel designs.

Rotating equipment will have the same journey as any new product category. Motorola’s concept phone, at least at this stage, is very wide and feels bulky in the hand. There are also questions about how durable the display is, as the screen is rolled and unrolled several times a day. Another burning question is how long the battery will last and whether or not a foldable phone will offer water resistance. Motorola, obviously, has no answer but then again, the Rizr is a concept phone that is far from being a finished product ready to be sent to consumers.

“This project is unique because we did an initial proof of concept to determine how the design would look and determine the next business process,” Snow explained. “We are still in the conceptual development phase,” he said.

Motorola, apparently, is in no rush to launch the Rizr as a commercial product just yet. While rotating display technology still has a long way to go before it reaches the hands of consumers, Motorola says it will “continue to explore new forms that can fit into the pocket without paying for a large screen.”

Motorola’s parent company and the world’s largest PC maker, Lenovo, is experimenting with rollable screen tech in laptop form. The device uses the same foldable technology that expands to 15.3 inches while releasing a 12.7-inch screen. This device, like the Motorola Rizr, is also not yet ready for commercial release.