Although we have yet to see the first commercially available rollable screen phone, we’re already seeing the design used in other industries, particularly in the TV market as well as on laptops. Lenovo’s design award-winning ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 concept laptop, for example, slides its lid up to deliver a taller screen. It does offer more screen real estate to fit more content or more apps, but a tall screen is honestly unfamiliar to many computer users.
In contrast, ultra-wide monitors are quite common these days, but their advantage only works if you’re at a desk where there’s enough space to place it on. Considering their portable designs, laptops are stuck with narrow and more standard screen aspect ratios. This laptop concept design, however, tries to offer the best of both worlds, and it uses one of two popular solutions when it comes to doubling screen size without doubling device size.
Designer: Compal
Truth be told, it’s not clear what mechanism this laptop concept uses to extend its screen, but given the absence of certain details, it can only be a rollable display. After all, Taiwanese ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) Compal already showed off a concept for a dual-screen laptop with a multi-axis hinge, so it’s more plausible that the Infinite laptop concept employs a rollable design this time around. The fact that there doesn’t seem to be any hinge further supports that theory.
Regardless of the actual mechanism, the purpose of Compal’s Infinite concept remains the same. It extends its display laterally, turning a 14-inch monitor into an 18-inch ultra-wide screen to deliver more space for more complex workflows. Only the sides of the laptop lid seem to slide out, and the rollable parts of the screen seem to remain hidden inside the lid when not expanded. The design easily keeps the laptop portable and usable in constrained spaces but still offers the possibility of more screen real estate when needed.
Another unique feature of the concept is the grilles that stand behind the rollable sections of the laptop screen. It appears that these are actually grids of LEDs arranged in a dot-matrix fashion and can be used to show notifications or denote actions. It’s not exactly a groundbreaking feature compared to a rollable laptop screen, but it does add a bit of flavor to the concept design.
Interesting as it may be, the chances of us seeing the Infinite in action are close to nil, at least not from Compal’s brand. The company’s business revolves around creating and licensing designs for device manufacturers, so it might show up someday under a different name. Presuming, of course, the rollable design catches on in the computing space, which has failed to do so despite numerous concepts and prototypes demonstrating its potential.
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