Samsung's rollable phone may not require you to choose between a wide or tall screen

I remember attending CES and seeing the Royole FlexPai, a device that featured a foldable display. This was a pretty big deal at the time, because we'd seen nothing like it.

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Understandably, people were pretty excited about this. While Samsung didn't have its own showcase for this type of technology at the show, it would later make a huge splash at its own event just a month later, with the announcement of the Galaxy Fold.

Since then, Samsung has come a long way, making improvements to its foldable display technology, and offering some of the most compelling foldable phones in the world. And while trifold phones are still in their infancy, it's apparent that rollable phones are the next frontier.

Is this really what's next?

We know that foldable phones aren't for everyone. However, rollable phones could be a little more alluring, especially when they carry the same footprint as current slab phones. If you've never heard or seen these types of devices, they have an OLED display that can roll into the body of the handset, extending to a large size when needed.

It sounds quite fantastic and looks even more so when in the flesh. Although we have yet to see a brand make this available, we did get our first look at something like this with the unreleased LG rollable phone that got the YouTube treatment a few years back. This was a real product that was set to make its way into the hands of consumers until the company shut down.

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Regardless, it's apparently coming

Now, LG never got its product across the finish line, but it appears that other brands aren't abandoning the technology. We've heard countless rumors that these types of devices are on the horizon, with Samsung being one brand that comes up time and time again.

While it has yet to show off anything, there's now some news from well-known leaker Ice Universe, sharing that Samsung is reportedly working on a handset with a screen that can change between 16:9 and 21:9 when needed.

This is meant to try and accommodate both wide and tall designs. There is no timeline of when something like this will find its way to consumers, but we've seen rumors of a rollable phone from Samsung for years now.

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While we'd love to see this phone pop up in 2027, it's unclear just how far along something like this is. And we also haven't seen much from other brands in this realm either. Perhaps the closest we've gotten is a prototype from Motorola that appeared at Mobile World Congress back in 2023.

The Rizr got plenty of attention at the show, but by next year, the brand had already moved onto something completely different. I mean we love seeing concepts too, but these technologies need to translate into real products.

Making a concept just to create some noise at a show isn't going to cut it. That said, we have no idea how difficult it is to bring this into the real world. It's one thing to have a device to show off at a show and another to have one that can withstand over 100,000 extensions and retractions.

Again, this is just one of those things that could be a rare release and cost a ton of money. The trifold phone saw this type of treatment, costing $2,900 in the US. And while a sequel is reportedly in the works, this isn't something that's going to be a mainstream release, even a second-generation product.

Naturally, we'll just have to wait and see. While foldable phones are still pretty exciting, they appear to have hit a plateau for now. They're thin and the crease that plagued early models has now been nearly eliminated. Brands now need to start working on getting better cameras into foldable devices to bring parity with its other flagships.