TCL, a brand name you may not recognise has developed a sliding handset for its 2020 flagship device.
Many concepts were released by the company during CES 2020 from foldable phones to the obvious 5G variants , however they decided to withhold the sliding phone.
You probable don’t know much about the company, however they have been developing Blackberry handsets for the past few years.
Images were obtained by CNET of the new handset, which show the TCL handsets in a range of angles and with the screen slid out to several positions.
When the screen is not slid out, the handset appears very normal, much like some of the high end androids.
The cameras offered on the handset look pretty normal too, a selfie punch hole camera and several lens on the rear of the handset.
But wait, this isn’t just a normal phone, just hold the edge of the screen and pull it apart to find out, the screen will magically double in width.
It’s definitely a very new design concept, offering a smaller and more comfortable hold for the user.
However, these are only renders, and it is unlikely the finished product will look the same, as we know with the Galaxy fold, where the crease can be seen.
The handset appears to be one consistent screen when folded out, however that would require for it to fold under the front of the device when closed.
That would surely require additional space to be made available, so it isn’t quite clear how TCL could do this with such a thin handset.
A second option is that the phone actually has two screens layered on top of one another, this seems more likely and would reduce space and the likely hood of the screen creasing due to the folding.
We are looking forward to seeing what the device prototype looks like and which of the screen designs they actually adopt, we will keep you updated on our findings.
