Rollable laptop displays to roll off the production line from April, says Samsung

CES Laptops with rollable displays that allow expanded screens are about to become a thing, thanks to Lenovo and Samsung.

Lenovo likes to show off futuristic hardware prototypes at trade shows and in 2022 debuted laptops and smartphones with rolling screens that grew to increase the size of the devices’ displays. In its prototype laptop, the machine started in a conventional clamshell configuration that when open could extend its screen upwards.

The Chinese company this week announced the laptop has gone into production in a product called the “ThinkBook Plus Gen 6” that can extend its 14-inch display to a 16.7-inch affair. Here’s a vid of the machine in action.

The machine will sell from $3,499. A specs sheet included in Lenovo’s announcement above doesn’t detail the resolution of the display, but does state the PC will pack a Core Ultra 7 processor, up to 32GB of memory and 1TB of SSD, weigh in at 1.69kg and come in a 303 x 230 x 19.9mm package before it unfurls its display.

Display models of the machine have been shown off at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it won’t go on sale until June.

A reason for that delay could be this Thursday announcement from Samsung Display that reveals it made the display Lenovo used and will commence mass production of similar units starting in April. Samsung’s spiel also reveals that the display used by Lenovo grows from a 5:4 aspect ratio to an 8:9 ratio – but without disclosing resolution.

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Youngseok Kim, Vice President and Head of Samsung Display IT Sales, offered a canned quote to the effect that “As the rollable display extends, it may experience stress, but based on our foldable mass-production experience, we have designed to ensure durability in our rollable products.”

Lenovo reckons the device will improve users’ posture, and productivity. Samsung suggests it will deliver “an enhanced view for efficient multitasking.”

Maybe it will deliver some revenue and profit to Samsung, too. The Korean giant needs both as this week it posted earnings guidance for Q4 that saw it forecast operating profit of ₩6.5 trillion won ($4.5 billion) on revenue of ₩75 trillion.

The profit was well short of expectations, and apparently at least partly attributable to ongoing memory manufacturing troubles that mean Samsung is struggling to cash in on the AI boom.

If a horde of you could go out and buy a rollable laptop, or the Galaxy S smartphones set to launch later this month, maybe that will help. ®