[HN Gopher] Teardown of unreleased LG Rollable shows why rollabl...
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Teardown of unreleased LG Rollable shows why rollable phones aren't
a thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMpANNGND4
Author : DamnInteresting
Score : 69 points
Date : 2026-04-07 15:07 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I loved my LG Phones, once they gave up on making phones I moved
| on to iOS. There was always something nice about each model. The
| LG G2 had an IR at the top of it, so it was a universal remote
| control, it doesn't age very well (wife still has hers, but you
| cannot see the screen), but it was at its lifetime / prime an
| amazing phone, the only change I would have done is add an SD
| card to it.
|
| The G5 was another great phone, I believe it was designed to be a
| "modular phone" the bottom would come out letting you take the
| battery out, but it could also add an attachment to the phone, I
| never did buy an attachment though, and I think the last one I
| had was the G7.
|
| I enjoyed their tablets too.
|
| For some reason people cling to other brands, and slept on LG
| which made some really decent Android phones.
|
| Both my G5 and G7 still turn on, I always say that by the release
| of the G7 (I forget the year) and possibly the G5, all decent
| quality smartphones got to the "good enough" stage of smartphones
| where it feels like I could own one for more than just 2 years
| before it shows signs of wear.
| sublinear wrote:
| I can't really speak for other Android users, but in those eras
| I either owned or was paying more attention to the HTC,
| Samsung, Motorola, Pixel, etc. phones because of their
| aftermarket OS support.
| II2II wrote:
| My first LG ended up being my last LG because it was defective.
| Screen issues started popping up about a year after purchase.
| Sending it in repairs didn't accomplish anything. They probably
| returned the same phone to me untouched since the screen issues
| would go away if the phone wasn't used for a few weeks (but it
| would always come back). While other people had similar issues,
| LG never acknowledged the problem. It was not confidence
| inspiring.
|
| In terms of what the phone delivered between software and
| hardware: it was a wonderful phone, but I lacked confidence in
| the brand to buy another.
|
| In contrast, I have never had a defective phone from another
| company. Heck, I've only had two phones that ended up with
| cracked screens (and those were clearly my fault).
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Which model was it? Curious, I know older LG models were not
| the best, but it felt to me that their last few sets were
| good enough for me. I am a power user for phones too. I use
| Discord, Slack, etc.
| II2II wrote:
| If I recall correctly, the G4. The issue was definitely
| more memorable than the model name: the image on the right
| half the screen would gradually compress vertically.
| presbyterian wrote:
| I had a similar experience. I had an LG V20 and I loved so
| much about it, especially the extra display at the top for
| notifications and such, and the really incredible DAC. But
| the glass, both on the screen and the camera on the back,
| broke 4 times over the two years I owned it. It's still the
| only phone I've ever broken glass on.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| My wife had that one, her screen cracked after she dropped
| it... after she sneezed lol! I was there, I wouldn't of
| believed it otherwise.
|
| It was a nice phone. The G7 was peak LG phones.
| Uncle_Brumpus wrote:
| I will forever remember the V20. I was at the mall shooting
| the shit with some friends in late 2016 waiting for the bus
| to bring us back to campus. We went to the Verizon store to
| look at the hottest new phones none of us could afford.
| There was a V20, and someone had changed the little top
| screen to display the static text "dicks out for harambe"
|
| I still have a photo of it kicking around here somewhere.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I liked my LG phones until I broke a screen and the cost to get
| a replacement was absurd because noone has them in stock.
|
| I am still kind of shocked that the non-leading manufacturers
| haven't standardized on hardware. Every company besides Apple,
| google, and Samsung, should get together and create the beige
| box computer of cell phones, you can get influencers modding
| them, gamers overclocking, etc. all the things that keep the
| desktop market alive.
|
| Instead of working together, every one of these companies acts
| like a greedy monopoly when they don't have monopolistic
| powers, or even any soft form of lock-in. Even if all they did
| was make phones that had easy to replace standardized screens
| and batteries. I could see them quickly making in-roads in
| corporate IT, and for kids.
|
| But none of them want to work together, so we get iphones, a
| few higher end iphone ripoffs, and a bunch of low end iphone
| ripoffs.
|
| edit: I'm also mad that I lost my cat S61, and that the S62
| looks like everything else.
|
| edit 2: I also hate that I switched to an iphone, and how
| comfortably easy it was to get full locked-in in two years.
| scrlk wrote:
| LG never really recovered after releasing several phones with
| bootlooping issues between 2015-16:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_smartphone_bootloop_issues
|
| Plus their software support was poor, even for the era.
| stuxnet79 wrote:
| My G4 succumbed to this issue, and I was never able to revive
| it. I had some important documents and images there that I
| hadn't yet backed up to cloud that disappeared along with it.
| Still very sour about that. Other than that I enjoyed the
| phone, felt the dimensions were perfect and the camera was
| good for its time. But a defect of that nature is too serious
| to overlook so that was the last LG phone I ever owned.
| Theodores wrote:
| LG got it right with the original Nexus 4, although battery
| life was a problem for all phones in that era. That phone had
| everything in a small form factor and it also came with a glass
| back that enabled the phone to fall off a perfectly level
| service, which was rectified with a little rubber piece.
|
| The Nexus 4 should have lofted LG into the big league and the
| Nexus 4 owner should have graduated to a LG flagship. But this
| didn't happen, in part because people stayed with Google and
| moved on to what would become the Pixel series.
|
| The problem with smartphones is that they are ultimately 'hand
| rectangles' and the average customer only needs adequate rather
| than super-deluxe. For a while it was possible to compete on
| features, battery life and mega-pixels, for people to queue
| outside phone retailers to be first with the new status-symbol-
| gadget. But times changed as the tech matured.
|
| Most people couldn't care less about their phone
| specifications, so long as it works. Getting the latest and
| greatest phone makes as much sense as on insisting on the
| latest model of hand basin or the most hi-tech garden trowel.
| Who cares apart from reviewers or people with little going on
| in their lives.
| cwillu wrote:
| > it also came with a glass back that enabled the phone to
| fall off a perfectly level service
|
| I used to put mine on my wallet, and it took ages to figure
| out why I kept dropping it: the moment you set it down, it
| would start sliding _incredibly_ slowly.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| I really liked the G2 as well. It was the first phone (at least
| that I saw) to put the power and volume buttons on the back of
| the phone, where a ton of later phones would eventually start
| putting the fingerprint sensor.
|
| I replaced LG's ROM with CyanogenMod back in the day, and it
| was such a smooth experience. The main reason I moved on from
| it was because I cracked the screen and the replacement screen
| I got (installed by a local repair shop) had a touch
| sensitivity issue along the top edge.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| But it (looking at the demo innards) doesn't add much of anything
| you wouldn't get from watching one expand and comparing that to
| opening a foldable?
| nailer wrote:
| Direct link to video: https://youtu.be/vDMpANNGND4
|
| The site also puts two non-youtube video ads in front of the
| youtube video so you can't just watch it.
| butlike wrote:
| Huh. I didn't get those ads.
| pavon wrote:
| Those are YouTube ads. YouTube shows more ads in embedded
| videos than when watched on YouTube itself.
|
| https://citl.news.niu.edu/2024/07/08/upcoming-changes-to-you...
| Stevvo wrote:
| Interesting video, but it didn't tell me why rollable phones
| aren't a thing. It doesn't appear any more flawed than the
| foldable concept.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I think the article gets at it indirectly: a complex mechanism
| with multiple motors, tracks, arms, etc, substantially more
| complicated and thus more failure-prone than any folding phone
| ever and also substantially more expensive to make.
| Mogzol wrote:
| Additionally, the flexible screen is on the outside which
| will quickly get damaged since it is made of soft plastic.
| It's too fragile for something that lives in your pocket
| every day. All modern foldables have the folding screen on
| the inside to keep them protected, and a standard glass
| screen on the front.
| gf000 wrote:
| It slides behind a glass panel on the back, so I don't
| think that's true.
| Mogzol wrote:
| The whole display is plastic, including the part on the
| front that doesn't wrap around. Yes the part behind the
| glass panel on the back would be protected, but the front
| of the phone wouldn't be.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Yet they still make trifold phones where one of the folds
| is on the outer side...
| Mogzol wrote:
| "they" being Huawei, and their phone suffers from the
| same problem, the main display can be easily damaged by
| dust, dirt, or just your fingernails pressing into it.
| Notably Samsung's trifold kept the folding display
| entirely inside when folded, presumably to avoid this
| problem.
| jfengel wrote:
| The impression I got was "too many parts, too much to go wrong,
| too expensive to build".
|
| It doesn't rule out that other people might have better ideas,
| but it does suggest why LG decided it wasn't worth it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That was too delicate for everyday use.
|
| Phones get the crap kicked out of them. They need to be _really_
| robust.
|
| I have an iPhone 17 Pro, and it's the first one that I've had
| (since the SE), that seems to have some "clunk" to it. I've
| already dropped it a couple of times, with no issues.
|
| I want one of those "shake to flip" phones they had in
| _Geostorm_.
| nomel wrote:
| Yeah, one trip to the beach, and it's all seized up/scratched.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Now roll me a 27" screen on my laptop and a 13" on my phone
| sahaskatta wrote:
| Lenovo has a laptop with a rolling screen.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GsJi1KvHhA
| dsr_ wrote:
| Phone mechanisms which worked for me:
|
| - the original Motorola StarTac "Star Trek Communicator" flip.
|
| - the Danger Hiptop / Sidekick II rotating screen-over-keyboard
|
| - the Motorola Droid slide-out keyboard
|
| - the OnePlus 7Pro slide-out selfie-cam
|
| Only that last one was motorized, but mine is still working.
| Holes and divots and islands and any other kind of screen
| interference is strictly inferior.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| I've been waiting for a Global from Earth Final Conflict for
| nearly 2 decades.
|
| https://community.ultimaker.com/topic/15743-global-link-prop...
| Already__Taken wrote:
| I don't really care to roll it up but why not an bit soft? To cup
| in my hand or fitted in my pocket would be nice instead of this
| brick. We can make lighter thinner phones if they don't need so
| much rigidity.
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(page generated 2026-04-08 23:01 UTC)