Pretty much everyone has a foldable phone these days, and that’s not much of an exaggeration. Even Alcatel, the company that you might know as selling dirt-cheap smartphone that most people don’t pay much attention to, has one on the way. And it looks horrible.
The company has just unveiled a few teaser images of its ‘Dragonhinge’ technology which allows the phone’s flexible display to fold up without wrecking any of the internal components.
According to the press release Alcatel wants the Dragonhinge on a range of Foldable Phones, including that tablety device up above. As it turns out a bunch of those devices have been photographed, and hit Twitter earlier today courtesy of Evan Blass.
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 23, 2019
As you can see there are teo distinct devices up there, in a variety of different positions. Since Alcatel has announced the flexible technology, and not the phones, it seems likely that these are concepts rather than accurate representations of consumer devices. You know, aside from the fact Blass’s original tweet outright says they are. That’s good, though, because the phone-shaped one is hideous.
The main issues there are the fact that the hinge itself is so large, and leaves a large gap as a result. A gap that seems to dwarf the ones on both Galaxy Fold and Royole Flexpai. The two sides aren’t symmetrical either, and that means there’s a chunk of screen that’s just sitting there uncovered. Not everything has to be symmetrical, but this is one of those cases where symmetry is import. The bottom of the screen is exposed to god knows what
Thankfully the tablet looks more akin to what we’ve seen from foldable phone makers so far, with one going so far as to offer an exterior display akin to that on the Galaxy Fold. Let’s just hope Alcatel realises that this is a sensible design, while the other one is 100% not. Here’s hoping the hinge gap isn’t also so large that a family of four could camp under it.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.