Motorola's bendy wearable blurs the line between phone and watch

Samsung and Google loves to boast about their foldable phones (and Apple's lack of). But another foldable maker on the smartphone market has a new proposition. Motorola's come up with a smartphone that you can whack on to your wrist like one of those wrist slapper bracelets.

OK, so it's not quite that flexible, nor so snug a fit. But the Motorola phone revealed at Lenovo Tech World 2023 in Austin is a one-piece flexible adaptive full HD display that can be bent into a U shape so it can be worn like a bracelet. In fact, it can be bent into various shapes, so it can also be sat up on desk (see our pick of the best camera phones for current options on the market).

The Motorola flexible phone concept has a 6.9in display flat and a 4.6in display when bent to sit on table. As for wearing it, an accompanying magnetic bracelet helps keep it on the wrist (it doesn't appear that the fit is so tight as to keep on through pressure alone)

All the same, even with the magnetic bracelet, I have doubts about whether the device would be wearable during exercise or on a dance floor. Some have also expressed concerns about how easy it would be to steal. I also wonder how heavy it is.

That does raise the question of who and what it's designed for. Many smartphones are intended precisely for using for sports, providing a range of health metrics. The Motorola phone, which remains only a concept for now, would appear to be more aimed at people who want a phone they can keep on their arm for short periods in order to keep it easily accessible while having their hands free.

Meanwhile, Motorola also used the event to announce a range of new AI offerings, intended to compete with those that Google announced with the Pixel 8. It has a generative AI tool that lets you take a photo of your outfit and generate a matching wallpaper. It's also developing a personal assistant called MotoAI with a privacy model that it says protects user data by blurring things like profile pictures and names in social posts when sharing screenshots.

See the best prices on current smartphones below. We also have a guide to the best budget camera phones.