👋 Good morning! We’ve been on a Jean-Claude Van Damme spree lately, watching Hard Target, Bloodsport, and Kickboxer. I’m still not ready to rewatch Street Fighter, though. 

LG’s Rollable phone gets reviewed

LG exited the smartphone business over a year ago, but it reportedly sold unreleased devices to employees. One of these devices was the LG Rollable, which likely would’ve been the first rollable smartphone on the market. Now, Korean YouTube channel Bulls Lab has posted a review, which you can view here.

What could’ve been

• LG first teased the rollable device at its LG Wing launch event in late 2020, with a follow-up tease at CES 2021.
• The Wing was the first device in LG’s Explorer Project of innovative phones.
• The LG Rollable was teased as the second device in this project.
• However, LG exited the mobile business before the rollable phone could get a commercial launch.
• As the name implied, the LG Rollable had a screen that rolled out or extended from the main body. 
• This way, you got a tablet-sized screen when needed. But retract the screen, and you’ve got a normal-looking phone.
• It was an intriguing alternative to top foldable phones like the Z Fold series.

What’s the LG Rollable like to actually use?

• Fortunately, Bulls Lab has put the device through its paces in a Korean-language video review.
• You can extend the 6.8-inch screen to 7.4 inches by swiping the screen laterally from left to right or by tapping an option in the side panel menu.
• The reviewer also placed a stack of three thick books next to the phone. But the Rollable was able to push them aside when extending the screen.
• LG does, however, offer a warning if you try to extend the screen while gripping it tightly.
• As for the screen quality? Well, there seems to be plenty of glare, and you can make out some wrinkles when it’s unfurled.
• Those who hate creases might not like the LG P-OLED screen, then. But the reviewer felt it was fine for a first-gen product.
• There are other quirks as well, such as capacitive volume keys, a SIM tray that’s only accessible by unfurling the screen, and secondary rear display functionality.

Where to next?

• The video is a great look at what could’ve been for LG — at least in the short term.
• If the foldable market showed us anything, it’s that second and third-generation products make great strides.
• So it seems likely that issues like display wrinkles and screen durability may have been tackled in follow-up models.
• Then again, there’s no guarantee we would’ve seen a Rollable 2 if LG’s mobile unit was still around today.
• Still, the form factor lives on as OPPO demonstrated with the X 2021 rollable concept last year. Our own Dhruv Bhutani spent two days with the device and came away with positive impressions.
• The fact that OPPO was willing to let users try it outside of controlled conditions suggested that the device was almost ready for prime time. But alas, nothing yet.
• Samsung is also working on the concept, according to Samsung Display videos and company patents.
• Here’s hoping one of these companies is brave enough to jump in.

Roundup

📱 Samsung surprises Galaxy S6 owners with new update: This isn’t a major update by any measure, but still nice to see (Android Authority).

💻 Framework’s modular Chromebook is the Chrome OS laptop of my dreams: Our own Calvin Wankhede praises the newly announced laptop for the user customization on offer when it comes to RAM, storage, and even ports (Android Authority).

🚫 No, YouTube, I will not subscribe to Premium: AA colleague Adamya Sharma laments YouTube’s aggressive, annoying methods of pushing Premium on users (Android Authority).

🔭 The latest James Webb Space Telescope image shows off Neptune and its rarely seen rings (NASA).

📂 Telegram has a serious doxing problem: The messaging app is reportedly doing little to stop politically motivated doxing (Wired).

📞 The Pixel 7 will be the first Pixel flagship to come to India in years (Android Authority).

💟 World’s oldest heart preserved in 380 million-year-old armored fish (Ars Technica).

🔒 An incident impacting password resets on Twitter: The platform has fixed a major bug that didn’t log you out of mobile devices when you requested a password reset. Pretty big bug (Twitter).

😒 The OnePlus 11 Pro could be a bare minimum upgrade: Chipset and wired charging upgrades are on the cards, according to a new leak, but don’t expect great long-range zoom. Again (Android Authority).

🖥️ Microsoft will host its next Surface event on October 12: Surface Pro 9 and Laptop 5 expected, with an Arm device also tipped (Engadget).

🎮 Logitech’s cloud gaming handheld finally has a price and release date: $350 for an Android gaming device powered by a budget processor seems very steep. An extra $50 gets you a Steam Deck. You could probably buy a more powerful phone for $300 and spend the change on one of the many controllers out there (Android Authority).

🤔 How exactly does “turning it off and on again” fix such a wide variety of different tech problems? (Reddit/ELI5).

Thursday Thing

Car research firm Clunker Junker (h/t: Digg) has posted an interesting study showing the US cities and states where EV charging causes the most stress. The company collected geo-tagged tweets related to EV charging and then used a stress detection tool called TensiStrength to identify posts with signs of range anxiety.

• It turns out that Montana has the most range anxiety out of all 50 states, according to the study.
• Kansas, on the other hand, was the state with the least range anxiety.
• When it comes to cities, the study found that Oakland, California had the most range anxiety.
• On the other end of the spectrum, Virginia Beach, Virginia apparently had the least range anxiety.
• According to the study, EV charging stress rates for the US states and cities vary between 20% and 30%.
• So it’s not a huge difference between the top and bottom performers.

Here’s to finding an EV charger!

Hadlee Simons, Editor.