While there have been many false dawns over the years, with regards to new styles of mobile phone screens, we may be about to see the ultimate in wide screen mobile - the world’s first rollable screen!

Telecom Italia have joined up with Philips and Polymer Vision to announce the planned launch of the rollable screened mobile in 2007. While the specifications for the mobile phone itself are still shrouded in mystery, it has been confirmed that the rollable screen will be up to 5 inches in length, offering a new dimension in wide screen mobile displays.

Initially the polymer based display will encompass a variety of black, grey and white colourings - similar to your conventional printer paper - there are plans to bring out a full colour version once market feedback has been received. Due to the advanced polymer technology injected by Polymer Vision, the quality of display will be excellent, and will not be effected by the fact that the screen will be “rolled up” for the vast majority of the time.

If the launch goes as expected, the two parties involved have announced plans to look at a moving picture screen which would fit in perfectly with the expected increase in mobile phone TV services. In effect you would have your own personal projector, and the length of the screens is undefinable due to the flexible nature of the polymers used.

While the device is already the subject of much discussion in the market place, this really does offer a new area for mobile phone manufacturers to develop. It should now be possible to introduce an array of tiny phones with potentially large screens, and due to the extremely low power consumption of the display material, one full battery charge will last an impressive 10 days!

If the project is as successful as early indicates predict, this device would open up a whole new market for such products. While people may wonder why it has taken so long to develop such a product, it has only been of late that a reliable polymer based screen has become available - prior to this the quality was not there, and would not have been well received.

Even though Telecom Italia are an established mobile network provider, they have very rarely been involved with cutting edge technology - are we about to see a new phase in the company’s development?