We’re close.
Samsung has been not-so-quietly ramping up its plans to launch the
The Korean tech giant has openly talked about the technology for years now. But as I’ve noted, Samsung has been increasingly covert with its future foldable plans; leading me to think that a launch is imminent.
And now, a new patent has been spotted by Patently Mobile, which indicates a possible design option for Samsung’s first foldable smartphone. The patent application depicts a relatively ‘standard’ looking smartphone design - albeit a tad square - with a display that can almost double in size if slid out.
The extended display appears to be hidden under the main display, with a mechanism on one side of the device that allows it to be slid out. This effectively doubles the device’s original display size.
This tallies with Samsung’s concept adverts in recent years, where future flexible smartphones are tubes with roll-out displays or passport-shaped tablets that fold out like a book. This patent doesn’t necessarily detail that sort of futuristic idea. Instead, with its mechanism for sliding out a second screen, this seems like a more realistic version of the rollable concept.
Check out what Samsung's new rival looks like: the iPhone SE in the video below
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It’s only a matter of time
Samsung and LG have been ramping up their flexible display production efforts. Both have played with slightly curved screens in recent years, indeed Samsung’s revolutionary Edge range is now very much old-hat.
But, as Samsung explained to me last year, it has certain categories and specific divisions dedicated to making this foldable tech a reality.
Aside from the ramped-up production, public praise of the Edge display and improved foldable technology, there’s one other key reason I think Samsung is close to launching a flexible phone: the Galaxy S7.
As I commented after the launch, the S7 represents the pinnacle of smartphone design. Samsung attempted to achieve near perfection by being all things to all people, which meant bringing back ditched fan-favorite features like waterproofing, expandable storage and maintaining the well-received premium design. Not to mention a less imposing TouchWiz, easily removal/hiding of bloatware, and the option to use the
Samsung tried to make the S7 the Android enthusiast’s dream .And, it’s because of this, that the S7 very much feels like Samsung’s swansong for identikit smartphones. Its final - perfect - effort before it tries its hand at something far more radical that could put distance itself and
This, of course, is just a patent, many of which are filed and never see the light of day. But given Samsung's efforts in this area, this patent could be a very likely possibility.
A completely game-changing foldable smartphone might not be Samsung’s next flagship, but I’d bet that we’ll see an experimental flexible device launched alongside the Note, or another non-flagship range, in the near future.
