TCL shows off its DragonHinge concept for future foldable phones
TCL's DragonHinge concepts could lead to cheap foldable phones, but not for a while.
Foldable phones are the big trend at MWC19, with Huawei grabbing plenty of headlines for its uber-expensive, but oh-so-tempting Huawei Mate X handset. However, it's still early days for foldable phones and one manufacturer more closely associated with budget phones is showing off a range of foldable prototypes.
That company is TCL, known in Australia mostly for affordable TVs but is actually a major Chinese firm that also owns the low-cost Alcatel mobile phone brand. What TCL is showing off in Barcelona is a foldable AMOLED display using what it's calling the DragonHinge concept to fold in a variety of ways for different use cases.
"Together with the support of our sister company, CSOT, we're showing that TCL can be an innovator and leader in the mobile device market of the future," said Peter Lee, General Manager, Global Sales and Marketing at TCL Communication.
"When we look at the potential of our flexible device portfolio, we're obviously very excited about what we'll be bringing to market down the road. However, we're not in a race to be the first because we feel it is more responsible to take a patient, thoughtful approach to not only solve hardware challenges, but also work with our partners on software solutions to ensure we deliver a meaningful user experience," he said.
TCL's certainly not rushing to market with foldable devices, with a statement that it intends to bring its first foldable devices to market in 2020.
Alcatel, for its part, did announce a new range of budget phones and a new tablet device expected to arrive in Australia this year.
For more news from MWC 2019, check out our MWC 2019 news hub.
