ZTE Could Be Working on a Foldable Smartphone With Clamshell-Style Design

By now, it's probably safe to call 2019 as the year of foldable smartphones. Mobile manufacturers are trying hard to come up with the next big thing in the mobile space, and foldable phones might just be it. We've already seen Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and others highlighting their foldable smartphones, even though some of them are still prototypes. Joining the race of foldable phones now is ZTE. The Chinese smartphone maker seems to be working on a foldable phone that looks similar to Motorola Razr foldable phone concepts.

ZTE has filed a patent application for a smartphone that can fold vertically, quite similar to Lenovo-owned Motorola's concept of a foldable phone, likely to be launched under the Razr brand.

The patent shows the upcoming smartphone's design and foldable mechanism. It appears that the phone will fold inwards, but not in the middle. The upper half of the flexible display looks shorter.

Interestingly, ZTE's patent doesn't show a selfie camera. There's no cutout design for the front-facing camera either. On the right-hand side, there are two physical buttons. At the back, there's a dual camera setup and a hole for an LED flash. At the bottom, there are circular holes for speakers and/or the microphone along with a charging port.

The patent application was first spotted by LetsGoDigital, which has also posted 3D renders of ZTE's upcoming phone based on the images available with the patent application. In case ZTE does pull this one off, the phone is likely to compete with the much-anticipated Motorola Razr foldable phone.

However, this isn't the first time ZTE is trying its luck at a foldable smartphone. Back in October 2017, ZTE had launched its Axon M, which was a foldable smartphone (sort of) but the idea didn't quite take off back then.

With Galaxy Fold, has Samsung kicked off a revolution in smartphone tech? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.