Rolltop : A Laptop Concept that Can be Rolled and Carried

 Imagine if you could roll up your laptop like a newspaper and open it when required, and what if you could turn your laptop into a primary monitor if you wanted to play some awesome video games?

 Well all these are possible with the cool new conceptual ROLL TOP Laptop concept, which is being touted as a Future Designer Laptop. Orkin Design has unveiled this cool new concept with the support of Schlagheck-Design and the device comes with a flexible display which can be rolled and carried wherever you want. This goes beyond the traditional book like laptops which are cumbersome to say the least.

Thanks to its OLED-Display technology and a multi touch screen, it can be used a laptop while it weighs as much as mini notebook. It comes with a 13 inch screen while being used a laptop and when being used as a monitor, you could get a cool 17 inches screen. Power supply, multi media integrated pen and even a holding belt are integrated in the ROLL TOP and it certainly is an all-in-one gadget.

If this product is ever manufactured, you could carry your laptop like a newspaper by rolling it up, and making sure that you are not burdened by heavy laptop bags. While this is still a concept, we had written about the cool Microsoft Courier Tablet which comes with dual screens. You could also read about Cintiq, which allows you to write and draw better than with the help of pen and paper.

Futuristic Laptops, laptop concepts, laptop design, orkin Deisgn, Rolltop, rolltop laptop, Schlagheck-Design


Rolltop is a portable computer development concept for designer, architect and everyone, who would like to have a gadget, which, from an aesthetic standpoint alone, certainly hits the mark. By virtue of the OLED-Display technology and a multitouchscreen the utility of a laptop computer with its weight of a mini-notebook and screen size of 13 inch easily transforms into the graphics tablet, which with its 17-inch flat screen can be also used as a primary monitor due to the support attached to the back of the screen.

Rolltop 2.0 is a further development of Rolltop with some visible and mostly invisible improvements (e.g. internal design, placement of certain components etc.) Notebooks and tablets already offer pretty convenient computing on-the-go solutions, but Germany's Orkin Design proposes rolling up both devices into one ultra-portable package. The Rolltop concept will take advantage of advances in flexible OLED and touchscreen technologies to create a cylinder-shaped laptop computer that can be rolled out to form a notebook, a tablet, or display monitor. The concept has been floating around for a while, but has recently received a few tweaks to the design. Although specifics are in short supply, read on for what we do know.

Rather than carry around a notebook in a laptop bag, full to the brim with all manner of cables, the Rolltop concept proposes bringing everything together in a flat panel display that's wrapped around a central cylinder. The top of the column detaches and acts as a power plug while the carry strap doubles as a power cord (presumably some sort of battery technology is also included, although this has not been mentioned). The central column also contains speakers, a camera, USB ports, and a LAN port.

After unlocking the catch, the user would roll out the Rolltop display like a mat and then either leave it flat for 17-inch tablet computing, or raise one end up for something resembling a notebook. The lower part of the screen is then used for keying on a virtual, onscreen keyboard while the upper part becomes a 13-inch display for viewing content. A pull-out support at the back also allows the flattened device to be used as a monitor-like display, and a stylus pen has been incorporated into the body of the panel.

When rolled up, Rolltop will be 11 inches (28 cm) long and have a 3.26-inch (8.3-cm) diameter – and that's about all we can tell you. As it's a concept designed to be built in the future, some of the technology kinks are still being worked on, but Orkin has stated its intention to see this design through to an actual, real-world product. There are, of course, quite a number of technical hurdles to overcome before that happens and unfortunately the designers do little to shed light on how such difficulties will be dealt with, leaving us to speculate.

It requires no great stretch of the imagination to visualize the various technologies already used in dual-screen notebooks, all-in-one computers and cutting edge tablets being incorporated into the Rolltop. Recent developments in bendy screen technology might also make this device a current possibility. However, details on how the internal components like processors, memory, storage and graphics cards will be dealt with have not been forthcoming, so it looks like we're just going to have to wait until there is more substance to this project.

Looks like a thermos, but it's a laptop in disguise. (Credit: myRolltop)
Back in 2009, more than a few people drooled over a concept videofrom Orkin Design for a laptop with a flexible screen that rolls up into a magic scroll of sorts. The Munich-based design firm recently released an updated concept video, but the Rolltop is so far no closer to becoming reality.


The Rolltop 2.0 is envisioned as having a flexible OLED (organic light-emitting diode) multitouch display (perhaps similar to Sony's) that can be used as a 13-inch laptop screen or full 17-inch monitor with a stand attached to the device.

When it's not being used, the screen rolls up into an 11-inch tube. It curls around a base tower that houses a Webcam, loudspeaker, and detachable power supply and cable that doubles as a shoulder strap. Check it out in the vid below.


The designers say they weren't thinking of making Rolltop into a product at first, but were so delighted by the warm response their concept received, they decided to move ahead with it.


They're now looking for partners and donations to help their cyberscroll see the light of day.