Motorola Rizr first impressions: Refreshing and unique but the rollable screen could be its Achilles heel

Published: Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 7:45 am

After I got my hands on the new Motorola Rizr rollable concept phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I returned to the media lounge and started googling about the BlackBerry Priv (review). You must be wondering why the BlackBerry Priv has anything to do with the Moto Rizr? I will tell you the connection in a bit. Coming back to the Moto Rizr, if theres one word thats really defined the concept of a rollable phone, its Have fun! And yet, some part of me could understand that Motorola was trying to actually solve a puzzle. The ultimate intention seems to be to promise a phone thats super compact but with a display that expands when rolled out. Its a wild concept, but surely with a lot of design caveats. In fact, it took me a while to get over the Motorola Rizr. Here are my early impressions of the new Moto Rizr concept rollable phone. Motorola Razr meets BlackBerry Priv I loved the BlackBerry Priv when it came out in 2015. I dont know if you even remember the Priv was an unusual phone sporting a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from behind the 5.4-inch quad HD display. Motorolas Rizr concept phone is fundamentally trying to achieve the same thing that BlackBerry Priv meant to do, but this time its the rollable display that is taking the form factor forward, quite literally. The Motorola concept phone has a 5-inch device with a flexible POLED display that covers the front of the phone, then rolls around the bottom edge and continues almost halfway up the back. Press a button and the phones motorised components push the top of the device upward, revealing a larger 6.5-inch 22:9 display that looks just like a regular phone. This type of design not only gives you a bigger screen for watching movies or scrolling through a Twitter feed when needed but the form factor offers a more pocketable version of a normal smartphone available on the market. Think about it that way. The Motorola Rizr morphs into a big phone when you want it to be. Most of the time, it will be a small phone thats easy to slide into the pocket. Using it The rollable display may be Rizrs defining feature, but it also makes the phone thicker than most other phones I have used in recent years. But the Motorola Rizr isnt weird as Samsungs tri-foldable concept device, which is also being showcased at the Mobile World Congress. You interact with the phone as you often do by touching its screen. Even as a concept phone, the Motorola Rizr is technically usable. Tap the power button twice and the phones screen rolls up and down. The phones screen expands in a flash and its got satisfying action. But I am a little worried about how Motorola will tweak the software tailored for the rollable form factor. I briefly opened a YouTube app on the phone, and the screen extends itself when you watch a video. For me, though, the rollable screen on the phone is more useful when typing an email and needs extra keyboard space. Motorola Rizr leaves some lingering questions unanswered The Motorola Rizr left me with many answered questions. For example, the screen on the Motorola Rizr looks very fragile when its in expanded form. Although I didnt notice any flex on the screen, it does make me a little awkward using the phone. Another concern is the risk of screen scratches on both sides. So when the phone is in the closed position, the display wraps around the phone to the back, and while I liked the concept of a real-facing display for notifications, theres a high chance the screen is susceptible to scratches. This, I suspect, is where the durability aspect of rollable devices comes into question. I feel devices like the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (review) and Motorolas own Razr (review) are better protected due to their interior flexible display, unlike the Rizr where the flexible display is on both the front and back. Am I impressed with the Motorola Rizr? As a concept device, the Motorola Rizr is impressive. Maybe there are reasons why the rollable device makes sense, though. But I also believe getting a rollable device into the hands of people might be more challenging than foldable phones due to the fragile nature of rollable screens. That said, I do appreciate Motorolas efforts at thinking a little differently and out of the box to make our smartphones better than the current phone form factors that are available on the market. For now, Motorola has no plans to make the Rizr a commercial product and the reasons for not launching the device in the market are very much clear.

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