Lego surprises with the Lego Fold, its antidote to folding phone mania

In a surprising piece of news, Lego has not missed out on an opportunity to embrace a massive mobile tech trend this year — folding smartphones. What, exactly, has the brick company come up with to take on the might of the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X? It’s the Lego Fold, and like folding smartphones, the design has been heavily — and we mean heavily — influenced by a traditional book.

The Lego Fold appeared on the company’s Twitter account, in a message letting us know it has a 5-inch cover display, and an 11-inch main view when unfolded. Describing it as showing “pop-up” visuals, we imagine it’s hinting at a 3D-like experience. The Galaxy Fold makes do with a 7.3-inch unfolded screen, while even the Huawei Mate X’s 8-inch screen will look small next to it.

What’s more, Lego claims the Lego Fold will never run out of battery, suggesting it has solved one of the greatest problems facing the mobile industry. Lego is known for integrating new tech — including augmented reality — into its creative toys, but this is a genuine shock. We wonder if the Lego Fold will include 5G, another major trend, too?

No, of course it won’t. The Lego Fold, as a folding smartphone, doesn’t exist. This is Lego poking fun at the mania surrounding folding smartphones, including the reference to Samsung’s Galaxy Fold promotional image, to cleverly show off its own folding product. The $70 Lego Ideas Pop-up Book was released at the end of 2018, and is the first product of its type for the company. It looks like a book made from Lego bricks, which opens out to reveal a pop-up depiction of two fairy tales — Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk.

If you haven’t heard about Lego Ideas, think of it like crowdfunding for fun future Lego sets. People pitch their ideas to Lego, either organically or through competitions, which are then voted on and potentially turned into a real product. Previous winners include the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 vehicle, the original Lego Minecraft set, and sets based on The Flintstones cartoon. The Ideas Pop-up Book even proved popular enough for Lego to hold a competition to find other ideas for similar books.

Sadly for fans, Lego has not launched its own folding smartphone, and as far as we know, does not have one in development either. For now, you just get to enjoy building and rebuilding the Ideas Pop-up Book instead.