Lenovo foldable smartphone patent shows off its peculiar impracticality in renders

There’s no denying Lenovo manufactures some wonderful laptops and even some good smartphones. The Chinese company has long been linked with development of a foldable smartphone, with a rather clunky-looking prototype appearing in reports in September of last year. LetsGoDigital has turned some patent drawings of one of Lenovo’s foldable ideas into beautiful renders, but the idea behind the phone itself seems to be somewhat half-baked.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X both have that “book” type of fold we are most likely to expect from a foldable smartphone. Xiaomi has taken a slightly different route, but looking at these renders it seems Lenovo got completely lost. From the front and unfolded, the Lenovo smartphone looks more than respectable, if somewhat reminiscent of an older Sony Xperia design language. There are rolled-up hinges that occupy a significant portion of the rear, and these allow a user to fold the device up and over the front display to reveal…a smaller display.

The folding mechanism lets the user fold the smartphone's rear over the front, covering most of the front display and replacing it with a smaller display that resides on the rear in unfolded mode. It’s a strange concept that is difficult to work out in terms of practicality. Plus, the owner of this particular Lenovo foldable smartphone would be stuck with a “hinge gap”, as the patent drawings make it clear to see the fold does not flatten completely out. There’s a strong suspicion this particular patent will stay in the filing cabinet while Lenovo focuses on a much more practical design.