It seemed like just a while back when foldable displays were deemed too “raw” for the market. As a young technology, we’ve all seen it develop and find its way into the mainstream use we see today. However, Lenovo is taking it one step further by unveiling its latest rollable display technology.

If you’re thinking that this isn’t the first rollable displays we’ve seen, you’d be right. It isn’t. OPPO showed off the X 2021 Rollable smartphone as a concept last year, while LG did so earlier this year as well. As we’ve seen with Samsung (and Apple, to an extent) though, it’s not necessarily who is the first to bring a technology to market that wins. It’s who does it best within that certain window of time.

Posted in a YouTube video just today, Lenovo boasted of the possibilities its rollable display technology can achieve. We see a smartphone concept that expands as content viewed does, and retracts just the same. No more iffy black lines on the sides when viewing content in a different aspect ratio than what your device natively handles. With just simple taps on the side of the device, it grows and shrinks all in the palm of the user’s hand.

Another concept shown in the video is a laptop. Here, the device retains a conventional form factor but the screen rolls out to cater to a vertical orientation. This should appease those laptop users who connect their devices to external vertical monitors for the special purposes of their work.

Of course, all this innovation is not without questions from the public. We personally wonder if this motorized system can really last the lifetime of the device, as we’ve seen with the motorized selfie camera craze a couple of years ago. That didn’t last very long for that very reason. Dirt, particles, or even fingers could get caught in the hinges as the screen moves around – another possible hazard to take into account.

We can expect all these major manufacturers to do some intensive R&D before rolling out such a feature to market. Despite this, we remain optimistic that whether or not it’s Lenovo that brings this rollable display technology to the mainstream first, it will be a monumental step in smartphone technology and how we consume content; possibly even our daily usage habits. Only time will tell.