The Oppo X 2021 Concept Phone’s rollable screen is the future of smartphones

A lot of smartphone manufacturers these days are all out to experiment the next big thing in smartphone design. We had a blast when the foldable devices becomes available to consumers but let’s admit it, the foldable phones of today is more like a gimmick than a regular joe’s daily driver.

TCL and LG showed the idea of a more practical design for the next generation smartphone, instead of folding its halfway, a rollable seems to be more appealing. Here comes another manufacturer that makes that vision into a working prototype with the Oppo X 2021 concept phone.

The concept smartphone device was shown recently at Oppo’s INNO Day 2020 in which Oppo brings the idea into life as a working prototype unit.

It’s got a regular 6.7-inch variable OLED display which with a swipe or a tap of a sensitive part of the device, it rolls its display up to a tablet-like 7.4-inch, not only that, the User Interface elements also adapts as the display rolls in or out in real time.

Oppo uses a proprietary “Roll Motor” and an interlocking backplate to for strength and rigidity. For stationary components inside the device, the Oppo X 2021 uses a frame-on-a-frame design and a Warp Track as it calls it to protect the display.

While the mechanism on the Oppo X 2021 sounds feasible, there are still issues that Oppo needs to address and to refine its design, the company suggests a marketable consumer product is most likely to be expected in about a couple of years from now.