Moxi Group, a new Chinese smartphone startup, has announced that a new phone they’re unveiling soon can bend all the way around your wrist and be worn as a watch. Something like this has never been done before. Of course, prototypes of bendable smartphone displays made by Samsung and LG have shared similarities to this device, however this handset will be the first of its kind to hit primetime and start reselling.
By using a material known as graphene (the thinnest in the world which remains strong, clear, and flexible), Moxi was able to accomplish this giant feat of engineering. However, there is one catch that comes with buying a fully flexible smartphone: the screen only displays black and white colors. Nonetheless, it’s one small sacrifice to make in order to be the owner of one of the world’s most bendable smartphones. A full color version of the handset is coming our way, however, but it won’t be here until 2018.
So why make a smartphone that doubles as a watch? As Moxi told CNN,
Wearable technology generally doesn’t yet have the full capability of a regular smartphone…and customers are going to want a device with greater computing power and lots of functions.
Moxi plans on selling 100,000 units of their black-and-white smartphone/watch device, with prototypes of the handset/wearable being practically ready for full production. The end of the year is when you can expect this device to go on sale.
It’s going to be interesting to see just how big of a market there is for a phone with these capabilities. There’s a market for Samsung’s Edge curved smartphones and there used to be (if not still is) one for LG’s G Flex lineup of handsets which bent a little but not a lot or freely. Maybe customers who want both a smartphone and smartwatch will steer towards this device, however only time will tell if that’s true as wearables and handsets are becoming more like one nowadays.
So what will this cool smartphone run you? In China (where it’ll likely remain), the handset will cost around 5,000 yuan ($760). For reference, the cheapest version of Apple’s iPhone 6S retails for 5,288 yuan (US$806).
Source: CNN
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