The Motorola Rizr might not have the same cultural cache as the Moto Razr, but it doesn’t mean the company doesn’t want to revisit the product and modernize it for the current smartphone users.
The new Rizr borrows some essential elements of its predecessor, like the rolling action to reveal a physical keyboard. Unlike the original model, this version is still a concept device. As its quirky name suggests, it rises to show a rolling screen. It’s another implementation of the foldable concept and one we’ve seen other brands experiment with. The idea is to give users a larger display in a more compact form factor.
By default, the Motorola Rizr concept sports a compact five-inch 15:9 display. But when certain apps are opened, gestures are triggered, or the orientation is changed, it will mechanically extend to 6.5 inches with a 22:9 aspect ratio. As a fan of modern flip smartphones, this is definitely a concept I can get behind.
There is no indication yet of whether Motorola will release the Rizr, possibly with concerns around the durability of a device that rolls instead of folds. In the case of this concept, the screen tucks away behind the phone instead of inside it, leaving it more vulnerable to damage than the clamshell-style foldables. For now, we have to be satisfied with seeing the concept at tradeshows like Mobile World Congress where it first debuted.
There’s a rollable laptop, too
Motorola’s parent company Lenovo also had a new entry into the rollable segment. But this version is a laptop instead of a phone. The rollable laptop concept looks like your typical portable PC with a 12.7-inch, 4:3 display. But when you flip a switch on the chassis, the screen rolls up to give you a 15.3-inch display with an 8:9 aspect ratio. It gives that extra screen real estate that devices like the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i offer.
Lenovo hasn’t mentioned if this rollable laptop concept will become a product. But again, it’s easy to speculate that the durability and even the cost of these extra parts would prevent the company from immediately rolling (pun unintended) this out. (You can see both devices in action here.)
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