HP patents a brave foldable laptop screen design, but it's nothing like Spectre Fold

HP is reportedly working on a brand-new foldable device, and from a glance, it may look nothing like the Spectre Fold—which HP retired the “Spectre” naming earlier this year.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently published a 16-page patent document from HP. The document, dated April 2021 but only published recently in November 2024, details a foldable computing display that combines a large screen, using a flexible structure with hinge and spring mechanisms.

Take a look at some of the sketches below:

So, as seen in some of the sketches above, you can fold the screen compactly when not in use in a way that both sides of the screen wrap over the center. And if this design holds up, it can fold even more “extreme” than the now-discontinued HP Spectre Foldable.

“Flexible flat panel display technology, through the development of rollable displays, have allowed for the development of a lighter, thinner product that is easier to carry and store,” says HP in the document.

For context, HP has previously retired familiar names like Spectre, Pavilion, and Envy, and brought back the Omni naming for AI-powered PCs for consumers, as well as Elite for business laptops. The 17-inch Spectre Foldable arrived last year with a $4,999.99 price tag, powered by Intel’s Core i7-1250U, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

It’s been quite a year for foldable devices. Huawei shocked the world with its first tri-fold phone, the Mate XT, which stole the spotlight from Apple and its iPhone 16 lineups at launch.

According to the company’s recent patent, Samsung has also apparently been working on its own tri-fold phone, which is reportedly to be released next year. LG’s recent patent also suggests a potential return to rollable smartphone tech after the ill-fated LG Rollable.