Motorola shows off foldable bracelet phone concept

Motorola and its parent company Lenovo have shown off a bold (if somewhat familiar) foldable phone bracelet hybrid concept at Lenovo Tech World ’23.

Product research lead Lexi Valasek took to the stage to show off the Adaptive Display Concept – an ostensibly regular 6.9-inch FHD+ phone that moulds and wraps its OLED display around your wrist like an oversized bangle.

It seems the bendy phone with its orange fabric back latches on to a magnetised wrist strap, which looks rather like a small wristwatch. From what Valasek was saying, it seems this somewhat unwieldy wearable is only intended to be worn as such in a pinch, perhaps in those occasions where you need to use both hands for something (and presumably don’t have any pockets).

When not on your wrist, the device can be bend and positioned so that it’s free-standing with a portion of the display tucked under. It can also be positioned as a little tent, with both sides of the screen facing outwards.

According to a related Motorola news release, the concept phone “runs a full Android experience, just like any smartphone”. When in a free-standing position, it switches to a more compact version of Android on a 4.6-inch display.

It’s an altogether more fluid take on the clamshell form factor, which Motorola recently perfected in the Motorola Edge 40 Pro.

Valasek also used the presentation to showcase a new AI-driven personalised wallpaper system that Motorola is working on. It lets you create bespoke patterned backgrounds and related themes based on a photo.

This isn’t the first time Lenovo has shown off such a bendy wearable phone concept. It showcased a similar design at the sane event back in 2016. Since then the concept seems to have been fleshed out somewhat, though we’re still not holding our breath for it to become a finished product.