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(instrumental music)
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- Folding phones are boring.
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Look we've had the first wave of foldable devices
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and they're neat, but you've seen all that already.
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This is about what comes next
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after the current generation of foldables.
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Sling like the tri-fold from TCL,
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a wild new concept, folding tablet, phone thing.
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(techno-music)
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Unlike most foldables the tri-fold has two hinges,
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which lets it fold up into thirds .
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You can use it as a phone,
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you can unfold it once to use as a bigger screen
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or fold the unfolded into a full size tablet.
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It's not a half way compromise like some of the other
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foldables that we've seen which basically
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turn into just slightly wider phone displays.
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This is a full blown tablet.
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It's nearly as big as an iPad,
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but you can still fit it in your pocket.
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The screen folds from a 10 inch tablet
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down to 6.65 inch phone.
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You could also open it two-thirds the way
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and ya know prop that up it'll auto rotate
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so you can use in whatever orientation you want.
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There's a lot of weird use cases
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that you could probably use this for.
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The screen on this one is a 3k panel,
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but again that's just this prototype.
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We have no idea if the finished version will have that,
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but the tri-fold shows just how hard it's gonna be to turn
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these ideas into reality.
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I've gotten to play around with the prototype for a bit
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and it's really rough to use right now.
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It is incredibly heavy for a phone.
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It's got those big metal hinges and there are three separate
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batteries to power all those displays,
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it's basically three phones.
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And even though it's really thin as a tablet the phone mode
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is super thick and that's before your worrying
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about things like the software,
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which is basically non-existent.
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Durability which is a huge question
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or price which who even knows.
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(techno music)
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But looking even further into the future.
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TCL also had a very early mock up of a rollable phone.
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This is really cool idea that's a phone that has a fully
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flexible display that slides around the side
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and behind the phone.
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And it could roll back out and become a larger display
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when you need more space.
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The way it will, in theory, work
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is that there's gonna be motors on the inside of the phone
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and you'll press a button and it'll expand out
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from a 6.75 inch display to a 7.8 inch screen.
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Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but your actually getting
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almost double the screen space it's almost twice as wide.
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The whole system is actually pretty similar to the rollable
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Oled TV that LG's been showing off for years.
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Now again this is a really early concept,
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it's not even a functional device, just plastic
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and a screen that's literally just a sheet of paper.
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Is this a good idea?
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Who knows.
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It does avoid some of the issues of current foldables,
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like those easily breakable hinges
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and the creased display which is cool.
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But it's almost guaranteed to have issues of its own.
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Moving parts they're tricky.
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Now the tri-fold is just a proof of concept
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and the plastic sliding one even more so.
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You won't actually be able to buy either of these devices
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and it's not clear if TCL's actually gonna make products
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based on these concepts in the future.
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So why should you care.
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Well, first of all, because it's cool.
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I mean look at this thing it's a phone that unfolds
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into a giant full size tablet.
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And it actually turns on and runs android,
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it's like a science fiction prop.
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But it's also important, because TCL is planning
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on eventually making foldable and rollable phones
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that might actually look like these.
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Possibly as early as next year.
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The company says that it's experimenting with dozens
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of different form factors right now.
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So it's possible that phones like these,
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could be real one day.
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Look phones have basically
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been the same for the last decade.
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Black boxes with touch screens.
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Devices like the tri-fold or that sliding concept,
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even if they're not here yet,
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show off what the future phones
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might one day look like.
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And that's really exciting idea.
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Thanks so much for watching.
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If you want to see more videos about cool phones check out
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our Galaxy S20 ultra review.
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You can actually buy that one.
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Check out the review.
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See if you want to.
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And like and subscribe for more great videos like this.