BARCELONA—Almost nobody's going to buy a $1,980 folding phone, Stefan Streit, TCL's general manager of global marketing tells me. That's why his company, which is definitely working on folding phones, doesn't intend to be in the first wave of the folding market along with Samsung's $1,980 Galaxy Fold.

Here at MWC19, Alcatel showed us its new DragonHinge design, a hinge made of tiny gears that lets you curl up, fold, and flatten out devices made with OLED screen panels from one of TCL's subsidiaries, as well as a range of potential concepts: a tablet-like phone like the Galaxy Fold, a wristwatch, and a phone that folds up like an old Motorola StarTac.

"It's not critical for us to be first, but to have a very good understanding of the technology and what's possible," Streit said.

TCL is best known in the US under its own name for making Roku TVs, but it also makes phones and tablets under the BlackBerry and Alcatel names, manufactures Palm phones, and has a range of other product lines in other countries.

The DragonHinge lets phones fold completely flat. Nobody at the Samsung Galaxy Fold event was allowed to get their hands on Samsung's folding phone, and there were some suspicions that it doesn't go completely flat. When TCL's hinge is closed, it doesn't just snap closed like a book, though—there's a bulge at the seam making a space, because the screen is really curling up, not snapping in half.

Folding phones are going to be tied to 5G, because 5G networks will make people want "A large display…for a great multimedia experience," Streit said. That gives TCL time, as 5G rollouts won't be widespread until 2020, said Jason Gerdon, TCL Communications' head of global strategy.

"A 5G smartphone comes with added costs and a limited consumer network; that's why, for us, we see 2020 as more realistic for releasing a 5G smartphone. We can do it at a price point that will be more accessible, and then we can address a wider segment of consumers," Gerdon said.

"We want it to be accessible to virtually any consumer out there," Gerdon added. "So we need to do it in a way that customers can afford this technology."

Challenges on the Way

As I chatted about folding phones with Streit, we came up with various hurdles that the devices are going to have to get over before Alcatel really gets into the mix. For example: Folding screens often have polycarbonate covers, but those scratch easily. So Alcatel is waiting for a screen coating material that's hard enough not to scratch, but can still bend.

"We're going to be very purposeful on how we're designing these products, so you get durability but it's not necessarily sacrificing experience," Streit said.

Software is also a big challenge. Samsung's Galaxy Fold demo showed a limited mix of mostly Google and Samsung apps working on the exterior screen. Previous dual-screen phones, like the ZTE Axon M and Kyocera Echo, have also foundered on app compatibility. I asked Streit if Google would have foldable-phone APIs in Android Q, but he played coy.

"Google is very well aware of this. For them, this is critical as well," Streit said.