TCL bursts onto the Android scene with folding and rollable screens you'll flip over

But don’t expect to buy one anytime soon.

- MICHAEL SIMON

TCL isn’t exactly a household name when it comes to smartphones, but the BlackBerry (go.pcworld.com/ bky2) and Palm (go.pcworld.com/palm) phone maker is looking to change that in 2020. Ahead of the launch of its own phones later this year, TCL is piquing our curiosity with a couple of wild concept phones that make the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip(go.pcworld.com/szfl) and Motorola Razr (go. pcworld.com/mraz) look like old news.

To be clear, these are concepts in every sense of the word. They have no names, no specs, and no chance of being sold anytime soon. The models we saw were basically movie props with few working parts, but they’re certainly intriguing. And if they’re an indication of what TCL has in store for future phones, it won’t be an unknown name for very long.

While we’re somewhat accustomed to folding screens at this point, TCL doesn’t think simply folding in half is enough. To be fair, the company does have a single folding phone in development that folds completely flat with “zero-gap,” but TCL is staking its reputation on two moonshots: a tri-fold display that opens like an accordion and a rollable display that slides out like sideways window blinds.