Samsung has already demoed its flexible OLED displays as seen up top, but now they’re promising them in phone form, possibly in the “earlier part” of 2012. Does anyone want this?
Samsung phones like the impending Galaxy Nexus already have a curved glass screen — but a truly flexible display might make the process easier. Or perhaps a clamshell phone with a display on top and bottom? Other than that, I’m scratching my head as to why this make sense on a handset.
Why would you want to bend your phone’s screen? What would you gain from it? What does Samsung gain from it, beyond novelty? PC World says the tech will follow on tablets, which is maybe a plus for compactness, but otherwise, this seems more novelty than breakthrough. Screens shouldn’t bend for the sake of being bent.
[PCW]
bdc
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 10:02 AMI would imagine a bending phone would be more durable as it is essentially a shock absorber.
Especially for those occasions where people have their phones in their back pockets and break them (not me, I’m a front pocket guy).
So with that in mind…why wouldn’t you want a flexible screen?
CJ
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 10:03 AMLook up the Samsung Galaxy Skin – they’ve already come up with the phone and some cool uses for it. Aside from that – how cool is a screen you can’t crack! Keep your hard shell phones if you want and throw in a virtually indestructible screen. Forget Gorilla Glass…
age
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 10:57 AMthat is mad
Wardski
Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 8:49 AMApple rushes to patent “flexible screen in a mobile device” to stop Samsung from getting it to market…..
Vic
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 11:02 AMNokia demoed this recently as well.
Apollo
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 3:35 PMNokia’s AMOLED tech is based off of Samsung’s existing technology. Luckily, the two biggest manufacturers still get along quite well, unlike some fruit vendors we know :)
Hellmouth
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 11:17 AMBendy screens and phones start at 1:25 for those who cbf watching it all
illogical
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 11:24 AMTRANSPARENT AMOLED DISPLAY
IVE ALWAYS WANTED THIS AS A KID
Ledfoot
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 11:42 AMI’m just thinking about rollout maps that you can take hiking, hold them up against the horizon to see through and have landmarks identified.
Great for Augmented reality situations where you need to see what you are looking at directly, and don’t want to drain batteries using a camera
MotorMouth
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 11:49 AMBlimmin’ ‘eck! If they release a phone that looks like this one – http://www.hardwaresphere.com/2011/09/30/samsung-galaxy-skin-smartphone-confirmed-for-2012/ – I’ll be all over it, regardless of price. Hell, I’ll even put up with Android for it.
When/if this thing hits, all bets are off and Apple’s share price will be in the toilet within months, unless they can match it (unlikely, given that they have shown no interest in AMOLED). This is the real revolution, a phone you can wrap around your wrist, fold in half to fit in a pocket or do whatever else you might want with it. If they do what Nokia were showing last week and allow you to control the phone by bending and twisting it, then it will be even more incredible.
Captain Picard
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 12:21 PMAppears to have a screen back and front too, if it’s scratch resistant, you could hang it on your belt, very cool.
moloko
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 12:24 PMWOW I’m impressed, screens are getting pretty mental
Lord Crumplebottom
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 12:33 PMWe may just see that flip RAZR after all.
Aliasalpha
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 12:59 PMAnyone seen Earth: Final Conflict? They had the equivelent of cellphones in that called a global link, it was a small device not much bigger than a pistol’s handle but had a slide out section with a large touchscreen display
http://aliasalpha.customer.netspace.net.au/globallink.jpg
Imagine that with a screen that rolls up as it closes.
Yes, yes I want one of those
Franz
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 1:25 PMThis is useless on a phone.
The best way to make money from this is make bangles out of it, and you can then program them/add in imagery to be seen on the screen/move around the bangle. Cash.
Now can someone please steal my idea and patent it too? Girls would buy them by the carton of course, but I wouldn’t mind 1 or 2 myself.
Actually, on second thoughts, what have I done? now the corporate greed of america will make these and have adverts appear on them 90% of the time… and then you have to insert a nickel every 5 minutes, and then pay a bangle tax…
Oh I crack myself up.
Edward
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 1:48 PMA wrist touch screen band. Win.
MotorMouth
Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 9:28 AMI think you are selling it way too short. It doesn’t have to be one thing, it can be a wrist-band that turns into a candybar phone, that could then fold out again to be a tablet computer. Look at the video that’s running in the transparent screen at the end of the video, that shows you the real potential of this stuff.
smurfydog
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 3:08 PMI remember reading about this tech in New Scientist 11 or 12 years ago.
I couldn’t see a mass-adoption use for it then and I’m struggling to think of one now, however I look forward to being proved wrong.
Looking at a screen that is not totally flat would be pretty horrible for most uses I imagine.
Like I said, I’m looking forward to a time when my lack of imagination proves me wrong.
Sam Timmins
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 8:35 PMHoly shit, From THHGTTG’s Book in 2005 to a real thing now!
Tech loves to zoom past!
jacob f
Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 1:09 PMIm not sure what use you would get out of a lot of them but they are pretty awesome technology.
that 5″ folding screen / tablet looking one could be pretty awesome.