© Provided by CNETA profile of the phone and its pull-out chin. LG/GIF by Lynn La/CNET
At a prerecorded virtual announcement Monday, LG launched a new 5G phone with a swiveling display known as the LG Wing. The unveiling lasted about 45 minutes, during which the South Korean company went into detail about its Explorer Project endeavor, which promises to bring new kinds of designs to its phones.
At the very end of the presentation, LG teased a possible phone with an extending display. The animation only lasted a few seconds, but it included a darkened profile of a phone that had a pull-out chin. It ended with the phone fully extended and a single display that glowed. You can watch the clip here, in the last 13 seconds of the presentation.
LG did not immediately respond to a request for further comment. But the fact that LG is toying with this kind of idea isn't surprising. Even before the LG Wing, the company was no stranger to experimentation. In 2016, it released the modular LG G5, which let you swap out key hardware components, like the battery, for other accessories. Before that, in 2014 there was the G Flex, a 6-inch phone with a contoured display. Both phones weren't exactly top sellers and LG stopped iterating those phones in favor of more traditional flagship phones like the current LG G8 ThinQ. Even the LG G8 is different, though, in that it works with a double-screen accessory that extends the size of the display.
© Screenshot by Lynn La/CNET It's unclear how this pullout display would work, but perhaps it would be similar to LG's roll-up OLED TV, which implements a flexible display that rolls up at the bottom of its stand when not in use. Or perhaps it's something much simpler and the phone includes two displays, one of which just encases the other on the outside.
Whatever the solution is, the new design is nonetheless compelling. It opens up many possibilities about the comfort and portability of big-screen phones that are great to view content on, but cumbersome and bulky to carry around. LG hasn't released any other information about this tease, so this could be something years down the line. In the meantime, however, the LG Wing should pique the curiosity of people looking for a new kind of phone.