Samsung, Huawei, and Nubia are set to announce foldable devices over the next few days. LG says it is sitting it out for now and Xiaomi has shown off a prototype. A report says China’s TCL is also joining the party with not one but five foldable devices.
TCL is known as the licensee for BlackBerry and Alcatel brands. It owns the Palm brand too but has licensed it to another company which made the Palm phone released back in November. A report by CNET says the company has joined the foldable train and is developing two foldable smartphones, two foldable tablets, and a fifth foldable device that wraps around your wrist like a large bracelet.
According to patents and renderings, one of the tablets folds inwards while another folds outwards. The same applies to the phones too but are said to bend on the horizontal line like a flip phone. The fifth device, which sounds more exciting, can wrap around the wrist. CNET says a TCL executive told them back at CES 2019 that their first foldable phone will launch in 2020.
READ MORE: TCL announces Alcatel 1x (2019) and Alcatel 1c (2019) at CES 2019
Don’t get too excited. There is a possibility that the design of these devices might change or any one of them might be scrapped and not see the light of day. Nevertheless, it is nice to see more players are interested in making foldable devices even though they might not become mainstream for a few more years.
