Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Motorola foldable phones to date have all been of the vertical-opening “clamshell” variety.
- In a holiday gift pack, the company teases its CES event with a notebook featuring “fold” language.
- A notecard further teases “new perspectives,” which could hint at a horizontally oriented foldable.
Foldable smartphones may all rely on the same basic flexible-display trick, but how manufacturers go about designing them still varies wildly — and things are only getting more complicated as we move further into the dual-fold era with devices like the (incredibly poorly named) Galaxy Z TriFold. So far, Motorola has only produced foldables of the same vertically unfolding variety, but a potential teaser might just hint at a new direction — literally.
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Like a lot of companies, Motorola (and its parent company, Lenovo) are getting their plans together for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, where they’ll show off all their latest gear. Over on the service formally known as Twitter, Android Headlines editor Alex Maxham shares the nice little holiday gift pack Motorola sent his way, which includes a message about the upcoming CES Lenovo Tech World event:
Now, as you’re probably well aware, Motorola’s folding-screen Razr has been a clamshell-style foldable since its inception, and we’ve yet to see any sort of book-style foldable (like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series) from the company. But looking at this gift set, we really have to wonder if this is a hint that Moto’s lineup could be about to expand.
Granted, on its own, including a little notebook like this probably wouldn’t feel like an explicit hint. Tech journalists receive all sorts of random, branded swag from the companies we cover, and that includes a whole lot of notebooks.
But this is more than just a notebook. First, there’s that rather unusual wooden, living hinge, which already gets us thinking about folding things that traditionally don’t fold — certainly, smartphones fit that bill. Then we have that cover text further referencing folds. Round things out with this notecard about “new perspectives” and what sure feels like an “unfold” pun, and you could make a reasonably convincing case that this really is a teaser.
Between the book itself and that “perspectives” clue, the idea of a book-style foldable — whether it shares Razr branding or not — feels at least plausible. We’d be a little more comfortable with this theory if we had any corroborating evidence for it whatsoever, but we still have another month or so to go for something to turn up, so who knows?
Would you jump at the chance to take home a book-style Moto foldable, or do you think the company should stick with the Razr and leave the Fold to Samsung? Tell us why in the comments.
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