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South Korea’s Yonahp News Agency is reporting that Samsung has filed a patent for a foldable OLED display, which has been designed for smartphones.
Note, this is not a flexible screen as being touted by LG back in 2013. This is a display capable of being folded in half.
And this matters why? Because if engineers have managed to develop hardware that can fold in half – and an OLED display to boot – then smartphone producers around the world will be scrambling to be part of the action. If they miss out they might go the way of Blackberry, who recently announced that they would no longer be producing the legendary handset.
Why would smartphone manufacturers be falling over themselves over such technology? Current handset displays do the job nicely, right? Sort of. One of the biggest issues with smartphones is their form factor and what designers, and then engineers, can fit under its hood. Whether it be battery size or processors, designers want a great looking product with high functionality, while the engineers have to make it all fit.
An excuse from designers is that people like big screens, thus the size of some of the handsets now coming out. Back in the day, Nokia’s 3310 screen was about 1.5-2 inches, while the latest Samsung Galaxy S7’s is 5.1 inches. However, with the smartphone now becoming some peoples’ primary source of internet use, and some even suggesting the smartphone might become your only computer in the near future, a bendable screen could truly be a game changer. Imagine a handset with a 10-inch display that can fold into a 5-inch form factor? The screen size increases, while the phone fitting into your pocket doesn’t.
If Samsung have managed to find a way to bend OLED screens without compromising on quality, that Galaxy S7 you just bought could be yesterday’s news already.