If you like the idea of being able to change the size of your smartphone screen, Samsung (SSNLF) will reportedly soon have the solution for you.
According to Bloomberg‘s sources, the Korean Galaxy maker may release two new smartphones with bendable screens as soon as early next year. IBK Securities analyst Lee Seung Woo is quoted in the piece as saying the 2017 timeframe is “probable,” so long as Samsung comes up with a suitable user interface.
The screens would use Samsung’s organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology, as currently found in the company’s Edge phones. One of the devices would “fold in half like a cosmetic compact,” while the other would have a regular smartphone-sized screen that “unfurls” into a small tablet-sized display.
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Samsung has been teasing the world with its vision of a foldable smartphone for the last few years. Check out this video from CES 2013, when it unveiled the “Youm” tech that made its way into the Edge the following year:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAAie_Zf1pU&w=560&h=315]
The company has recently been filing patents that describe such a device.
Korea’s ETNews reported at the start of April that Samsung had made a prototype of its foldable smartphone, and mass production of the screens would start in the second half of this year.
Sam Mobile, a site that specializes in Samsung leaks, last year predicted that the device would appear early this year, which clearly didn’t happen.
As for the phone with the “unfurling screen,” perhaps it would use this rollable screen technology that Samsung showed off at a trade show last month:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX3_sSwiWIk&w=560&h=315]
