Sunday run
In this weekly column, Android Central fitness editor Michael Hicks talks about the world of wearables, apps, and fitness tech related to running and fitness in the pursuit of being faster and healthier.
Samsung, Motorola and other smartphone makers are racing to be the first to introduce bendable or rollable phones. Both brands showed off their wearable smartphone demos at MWC 2024, to the delight of gullible tech journalists excited to show off something new. Now, I’m here as an MWC official to make it clear: there’s no way Motorola’s adaptive display-shaped smartphone will replace the smartwatch.
If this article becomes as popular or ubiquitous as foldable phones, I’m fully prepared.But I see every major tech site’s Best of MWC 2024 list (including our own) praising the novelty of Motorola’s Adaptive Display concept, but I’m just not buying it, figuratively speaking or Literally.
My colleagues Nick Sutrich and Derrek Lee flew to MWC this year to capture video footage and dozens of beautiful photos of Motorola’s wearable smartphones , and the RIZR rollable phone that grows in height and has a display that slides out from the bottom.
The Motorola Adaptive Display looks fun to wear… ten minute demo. Nick explained that he “felt more positive about the concept than he expected” after trying it out, which surprised me: wearable smartphones “could be really useful, especially if you live in a city,” he said Think it has more potential than a smartphone. RIZR.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to pull my phone out of my pocket and put it away just to look at directions or something,” Nick explained. Although Android watches have Google Maps or other phone apps, the small display and cumbersome controls mean you can’t really use the watch while walking; for more advanced tasks, you’ll usually pull out your phone.
Wearable smartphones solve this problem. It’s secured with a combination of fabric and magnets to hold it securely in place, so you have a fully usable touchscreen with no size restrictions. Although it’s “a bit bulky,” as Nick generously describes it, he considers it the “best of both worlds” between a smartphone and a smartwatch.
Once you’re done wearing it, you can detach the phone from the band and use it as a regular phablet, or place it flexibly on your desk for hands-free selfies or streaming content on the top half, just like Like using a smartphone. Foldable phone in desktop mode.
Derek, who likes the Motorola Razr Plus, is less enthusiastic about the idea of a wearable smartphone, calling it “an interesting concept, but one I probably wouldn’t consider wearing myself.”
“I felt like if I waved my arm too hard, the phone could come off. Or someone could easily take the phone off my wrist from behind,” he explained. As someone who used to live in New York City, I really wonder how long it will be before someone tries to steal it in the crowd.
Derek also showed me photos of a similar wearable phone concept from Samsung (look up), although the prototype apparently broke during Samsung’s demonstration, so he wasn’t able to try it himself. Somehow I’m not surprised…
Who asked for this?
I’m harping on a concept that may never see the light of day, and there were a lot of other experimental products at MWC that probably didn’t have much of a consumer audience beyond initial novelty, like Lenovo’s see-through laptop. I’m impressed that Motorola engineers built something like this in the first place.
Let’s be honest. When you stumble while wearing this smartphone for the first time, the lower half of the display will shatter under its own weight. You may also scratch the displays on cabinet corners and doorways. This is already an issue with some watches with full-screen displays, such as the Pixel Watch 2, and it’s just amplified here.
Speaking of weight, it took me some time to get used to wearing the bulky Apple Watch Ultra 2, which weighs about 80 grams with the strap. Motorola hasn’t revealed how much its bendable phone weighs, but I have to assume it’s at least twice that much. Even with lighter materials, a typical 6-inch phone weighs nearly 200g/7oz, and the Motorola Adaptive Display looks chunky.
Boy, does the combination of weight and fabric make your wrist sweaty and smelly after an hour of wearing it? Since the phone you are wearing is caseless, if you do not wipe the back of the phone regularly, the odor will remain on the back of the phone.
Just like people loved the Apple Vision Pro the first time they tried it, because the novelty outweighed the discomfort.Then, once you start wearing it every day, you’ll realize too heavy This thing weighs on your head. I promise the same applies to any wearable phone: it’s too heavy and awkward to use at a desk, and it’s prone to damage and fatigues your arms when you wear it out for a walk.
Adding to my concerns, a phone of this type cannot have rear camera sensors as they would hinder the connection mechanism. Motorola had to add thinner battery blocks so they didn’t compromise flexibility, and I have to assume it had other trade-offs in the chip’s internal layout and ventilation. As far as I know, there’s no way to track health data – which is one of the main reasons to wear a smartwatch.
I’m sure many people are worried about the drawbacks and trade-offs of foldable phones, and new models like the Galaxy Z Flip 5 prove that doubters should have faith.but people wanted A phone that takes up less space in your pocket, or a tablet-sized display that you can carry around; who wants a phone on your wrist?
You might see prop designers on “The Jetsons” or “Star Trek” focusing more on style than practicality. Beyond that, Star Trek only used wrist-based communicators in a few feature films before switching to more subtle communicator badges on Starfleet uniforms, like humanized AI pins, but Used for speaking. Even in this fictional future, no one is using such bulky wearables for long.
If Motorola figures out how to get beyond the concept stage of a wearable smartphone and enough people buy it to make it the next big thing in smartphone technology, I’ll happily eat crow. But I’m not holding my breath. People buy smartwatches not just for style and health data but also for wrist apps and notifications, and if you ignore all the trade-offs of this design, it still makes you look like a complete fool.