“The world’s biggest smartphone makers were all trying to out-shine their competitors at this year’s Mobile World Congress, with most new devices boasting the same, large, flat screen with a button or two,” Parmy Olson reports for Forbes.
“Apple was the elephant in the room. It refused to exhibit, even though its iPhone and iPad were top-selling devices,” Olson reports. “But both Apple and its competitors may be under pressure to leap to the next level of hardware in 2012, and not just by being more slim or more shiny.”
Olson reports, “Samsung is using its plastic-backed AMOLED devices to make phones that are lighter, thinner and include ‘foldable screens,’ according to Richard Windsor, a senior technology analyst at Nomura Group… Nomura’s analysts in Asia have said they expect to see Samsung “apply plastic substrate-based, bendable or curved displays for smartphones from [the second quarter of] 2012,” and cite equipment manufacturers in Korea as their sources. The analysts added in a recent note that the first example of this technology would not be in a smartphone screen that folded in half (though that may come later in 2013 in a clam-shell like device), but in a screen that folded over the edges of a phone, replacing the usual screen border or “bezel” so that the display continued onto the sides.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike H.” for the heads up.]
I want an iPhone flip phone!
Now you can wipe your ass with your Android knock-off figuratively AND literally!
To me, the greatest feature/under threat is my privacy on my phone. There’s one company I would trust more right now on this, and Samsung ain’t it.
Didn’t apple already patent that idea?
It will have two styluses…thats the killer feature!
Samdung’s phones are getting so big they need this! Imagine, now your maps app will be like a an old-fashioned paper map and take you twenty minutes to refold it to a size that fits in your pocket!
And after twenty minutes of trying to fold it, you’ll still have done it wrong.
Foldable screens will be never as hard as strong glass ones (for obvious reasons), so these will be always scratch-prone. Quite useless technology for mobile devices. For big screens, which do not get scratched/touches, the technology will be useful, since it will allow panoramic view.
P*ss on Damsungs’ frickin’ crap.
About five years ago we bought a Damsung washer / dryer set, but we will not purchase any of their products from here on.
Stinkin’ thieving pigs!
Shameless, treacherous backstabbing theiving pigs. They stab one of their best customers in the back, you could not pay me to buy their junk.
Hopefully they get what’s coming to them.
‘Foldable screen…’
Umm, yeah.
Two words: ‘foldable fail’.
At least it sounds like they are not just copying someone on this one.
Pretty wild sounding tech! I like the possibilities
It’s the “folded paper” computer display from Caprica… 🙂
I thought I’d have to wait longer to see a headline with the words Samsung and Folded. Okay, the screen will be bendable. How about blendable?
Do not “Fold” “Spindle” or “Multilate”…
And more interestingly – Sony is developing a roll-out-able screen… the preferred Mobile User Interface is a Mulit-Touch UI called – iOS — from Apple.
Once Android is abolished – there won’t be much use for a “Foldable Screen” – how does it help the user?
Here is a “concept” that Apple could implement also. One can think it is somewhat a “folding device” too.
Most think about the folding screen and how cool that is. Yet, Steve Jobs changed from plastic to glass when he discovered scratches on the screen after only a day of use. Just how cool will it be when you have to have a screen protector and those cool scratches along the edges or folding point. Not yet convinced that a plastic foldable screen is a great idea. Glass for me though.
But you never know until you give it shot-go for Samsung.
If the device folds like a book, the screen is totally protected when the device is closed.