Hands-on with Motorola’s wild wearable phone

After all the exciting keynotes from several tech industry leaders at Lenovo Tech World, I happened upon Motorola’s booth on the event floor, and I got to play with its wild, super bendable concept phone that wraps around your wrist. If this flexible, wearable phone goes from concept to market, it could end up on our best smartphones list and possibly be in the conversation for best foldable. 

During my short time with the device, I got to bend it back, which felt interesting as it happens in small, smooth, incremental stages as the outside and inside flex and bend into place with a set of gentle soft clicks. It looks like a normal phone in its standard mode, with a lovely pink cloth knit material back.

You can easily manipulate the 6.9-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) adaptive display concept phone into several positions, one being very similar to the Motorola Razr+ 4.6-inch stand mode. That is where the similarity ends, as you can bend it into a taller stand mode, which gives you more display, or bend it further so it fits around your wrist and stays put with the help of a wrist strap. 

Wearable concept infused with AI 

Of course, since this is an AI-focused event, the Motorola super flexible wearable with adaptive display comes loaded with an AI-infused version of Android. Lexi Valasek, who is the Research Lead at Motorola, demonstrated the device using AI to create backgrounds that match your outfit automatically. Sure, that is not a life-changing use of AI, but for the fashion-minded, it would be amazing to be able to match your phone to everything and anything you might wear.

The bendable concept phone isn’t a true foldable as it doesn’t completely fold. It is mostly extremely flexible and would allow users to station in many different ways, which could also come in handy when shooting selfies. Also, it is not yet bendable enough to wear without a little bit of help from a wristband, which means this concept device isn’t fully ready yet.

When in hand, you can better understand how it would prove useful when wanting to shoot quick photos or selfies or even to answer calls and respond to emails without pulling your phone out of your pocket. 

During the keynote address, Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang discussed how the upcoming AI-infused computers and smartphones will work more seamlessly together. Shortly, we could have a smartphone on our wrists connected to our computer, allowing us to enjoy a smoother workflow and even improve our work-life balance.

Overall, though not yet ready for prime time, it is a beautiful concept device, and once perfected, I can’t wait to wrap one around my wrist. Who knows what AI-infused capabilities it will come with? The possibilities seem endless. 

We will be reporting live from Lenovo Tech World 2023 all week.