Last year Tecno presented a rollable phone concept called the Phantom Ultimate. This was just a concept, though, seen only in demo videos – but now the company has some actual prototypes and brought them to the MWC. We got some hands-on time with the Ultimate and a couple of other interesting ideas that are brewing over at Tecno HQ.
The Phantom Ultimate may never become a retail product, but it is now a real working device. The phone starts off with a 6.55” display that wraps around the left edge. At the push of a button, it grows wider and as more screen spools out the diagonal grows to 7.11” (with a different aspect ratio, of course), all in the span of 1.3 seconds.
The Tecno Phantom Ultimate extends and shrinks as needed
There is a “second display” on the back – we put that in quotes as it’s actually the main (and only) display that is rolled around the back. Here the display is seen through a glass window, so you don’t have to worry about damaging it. It’s a clever use of what is already there.
The rise of foldable phones have pushed Android to develop better support for screens suddenly changing their size and aspect ratio. The Tecno Phantom Ultimate is a good demonstration of that too as the UI and apps adjust after you extend or shrink the display.
The UI dynamically adjust to the new screen size
The device measures 9.93mm thick, which used to be slimmer than any foldable, though some horizontal folding models have now reached below the 10mm mark.
While Tecno is still experimenting with rollable phones, it already has two foldables on the market – the Phantom V Fold and the V Flip. The company’s engineers have been busy dreaming up ways to make them better.
One thing that they have come up with is called Borderless Foldable Main Screen . It’s pretty self descriptive – it’s a modification of how the Ultra Thin Glass (UTG) is attached to the phone that allows the manufacturer to shrink the bezel around the screen, giving it a better screen-to-body ratio.
Borderless Foldable Main Screen
At last year’s MWC Tecno unveiled the Chameleon Color Technology – basically, a panel on the back that can be set to one of several thousand colors. This is achieved with sub-micron prisms that can be rotated by a magnetic field.
Chameleon Color Technology on a flip foldable phone
This means that the effect needs ambient light to work, but on the flip side it uses very little power – on the order of milliamps. And it’s quite fast too, needing just 0.03s to shift to a different color. Additionally, Tecno says that this has a very long service life so you don’t need to worry about it wearing out.
For more of Tecno’s advanced concepts, check out the Tecno Pocket Go and Tecno Dynamic 1.
