Have a tablet or phone with flexible display has been on the mind of innovators, and OEMs from some time and Lenovo has now come up with a foldable display with the phone, and tablet like the form factor. At the Tech World 2017, the company showed off what they call it as “Lenovo Folio“, and this is still more of a product in development, but it’s here.

The flexible screen expands from 5.5 inches to 7.8 inches and is powered by the Qualcomm Xiao Long 800 processor. The resolution scales up to 1920 x 1440. You get a narrow bezel, and a 4.2. mm, fold radius. It is powered by Android 7.0 and comes with e-SIM. This is not surprising because that slot has to go away sometimes in future to give more space to bending technology.

This reminds me a bit about Microsoft’s vision of next mobile factor, and this gets you step closer to that concept. A foldable device which can work like phone by shrinking itself, and you open it up to use it like a mini PC. If Microsoft does it, they will definitely have the continuum on board, the way everybody expected.

That said, it’s still a product that will take it’s time to hit the market. When you have a display which folds back, and forth, it has to surpass the expectation of its usage by consumers. They will end up doing so many numbers of times, and since it is the selling point, no body will accept if that thing gets broken quickly.

That said, the UI also needs to adapt and keep looking pretty. If you watch the video, the display is still not impressive, and hence the beta. The second big problem is when you fold the device, the screen is open to hits, bumps, and scratches, and well the fingerprints. You just can’t stomp it on the table like your existing phones. Unless the display tech becomes almost bullet proof, it won’t be easy for these devices.

Let’s see how it goes in a couple of years.

Via Reddit