In preparation for next week’s Society for Information Display (SID) exhibition, Samsung is introducing new possible uses for foldable screens, taking the form of devices that fold in several directions.
OLED screen technology is still far from reaching its limits, a brief look at the design concepts proposed by Samsung showing that we will probably still be dealing with foldable phones and tablets many years from now. Moreover, Samsung is willing to combine the technology of rolling screens, delivering all kinds of gadgets whose screens fold and roll, depending on needs.
Called the S-foldable screen, the first prototype is essentially a smartphone with two folding areas and three housing segments. In full extended mode, the OLED screen reaches a diagonal of 7.2 inches. Facilitating the opening in a single movement, one side of the screen folds inwards, forming the back of the phone, and the other outwards. The result seems to be a phone that looks almost conventional in folded mode, with about a third of the screen surface still visible.
The second prototype seems to be a sliding screen phone, which extends from one side of the case, enlarging the display area vertically.
At the touch of a button, the screen can be enlarged a few millimeters to provide a larger surface for multi-tasking and media consumption.
Samsung also introduced a 17-inch screen that folds in half similarly to Microsoft’s Surface Neo tablet and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold. The difference is that this time the two halves of the screen form an uninterrupted display surface, only good for watching video content. However, the extended screen has a 4: 3 aspect ratio, optimized for productivity.
Addressing the laptop segment, Samsung presents a screen that can be accommodated in an almost frameless design. However, the concept also includes a front camera, integrated under the upper frame barely visible.
