LG cleverly teases rollable smartphone during CES 2021

As part of a fully virtual CES 2021, LG hosted a livestreamed press conference on Monday to show off its upcoming smart home appliances, transparent TVs, anda very quick look at what appears to be its next smartphone project: the LG Rollable.

Other than confirming its name, LG didn't provide any additional details on the device during the presentation. Instead, it cleverly teased the phone with one shot of it expanding at the beginning of the keynote and another shot of it contracting at the end.

Over the last few months, the LG Rollable has been rumored to be the second device joining the LG Explorer Project, which is essentially the company's experimental lineup of phones. LG originally kicked off the project back in September with the LG Wing — a dual-screen phone with a main display on top that swivels to unveil a second screen under it.

But rather than a swiveling display, the LG Rollable appears to have a single display that rolls out to give you a larger screen for a more tablet-like viewing experience. Then, it rolls back up into the size of a standard smartphone.

Again, LG has yet to reveal exactly how this thing works, but it's super reminiscent of TCL's rollable concept phone announced last year. TCL's version has a small pushrod motor built into it that can be triggered by gesture controls (such as swiping up your thumbs) to push the display out. It's possible the LG Rollable could include a similar mechanism.

But unlike TCL's concept device, it's highly likely the LG Rollable will actually make it into the hands of consumers, like the LG Wing did. However, when the company plans on launching it remains to be seen.