Foldable smartphones have a special place in the Samsung portfolio. Devices of this format are expensive and still far from mainstream, but the South Korean giant believes that the future belongs to gadgets with bendable screens. The company has already mastered the technology that allows displays to be bent in one place, and in the future, it may release a smartphone where the screen can be bent in two places.
Samsung showed a smartphone with a flexible display that bends in two places
We’ve already seen the company’s patents where screens can be folded in an S-curve. From development on paper, the company has already moved on to prototyping. At the International Display Expo (IMID), which took place this week in South Korea, Samsung unveiled a screen that can fold in a S-curve.
It is a 17.3-inch OLED panel. Fold it in three, the user gets a candy bar, which is similar in size to a smartphone – 7.2 inches, but only thick and weighty enough. At the same time, the company says that in the unfolded state, the user can work with the screen both horizontally and vertically, based on the tasks that are being performed.
The smartphone supports multitasking with split-screen function. We do not know anything about the prospects and timing of the appearance of commercial devices with Z-shaped displays. However, we will definitely get more information about it in the few upcoming months.
Gizchina News of the week
Samsung unveils a 12.4-inch fold-out smart speaker
The IMID 2021 exhibition kicked off on August 25 in Korea. The leading display players Samsung and LG have unveiled some interesting device concepts these days. The first showed an S-shaped foldable device that can be turned into a smartphone or a huge 17.3-inch tablet. And LG showed off a smart bed with a 55-inch transparent screen.
But today Samsung has introduced an even more interesting product – a smart speaker that turns into a 12.4-inch display. According to a video from the Korea Display Trade Show, the new smart speaker has a cylindrical body with an OLED screen wrapped around it. After pressing a button in the proprietary application, the display straightens, turning into a flat 12.4-inch screen. Changing the shape of the panel occurs in a matter of seconds, which is amazing.
Samsung also reportedly plans to showcase a 48-inch TV with flexible display panel and cinematic sound quality at IMID 2021; as well as a 34-inch monitor with a 144Hz refresh rate.