LG Rollable phone prototype caught on video

LG claimed it had in fact developed — and would soon sell — a rollable phone just three months before announcing its retirement from the smartphone business. However, did it really make one? The only evidence was a quick teaser at the top of a virtual press conference that may have been entirely CG, and the phone never saw the light on shelves.

But now, for the first time, we can witness a genuine LG rollable phone unfolding its display in the wild (via NotebookCheck). It's a dead ringer for the image that Korea's Agency for Technology and Standards regulatory body revealed last March, and we see it unroll from so many angles (with so much glare and other hard-to-fake video elements) that it seems genuinely genuine.

As you can see, it's a little video with not much to learn beyond the fact that seeing a screen that rolls is fantastic. Since the screen extends automatically after pressing a button, the LG Rollable is clearly motorized, and it's fascinating to observe how you get more screen space (and app icons) as it does. You might easily bury tablet-mode apps in that rollable "drawer." The phone is said to have a 7.4-inch, 1600 x 2428 display that shrinks down to 6.8-inch, 1080 x 2428 when rolled up, so there you go. We also get a peek at the back of the device, which features a highly reflective finish and what appear to be three camera modules as well as an apparent flash.

You may have heard that LG's rolling phone ambitions were dashed, but you should know that LG Display's might still continue — both LG and Samsung's display businesses are continuing to explore a variety of strange concept displays. In May, reputable leaker Evan Blass revealed that Motorola was working on a rollable codenamed Felix.