Right now the best foldable phones are considered leading edge when it comes to phone design, but that might not be the case for long. I was one of the first people in the world to go inside Samsung Display’s headquarters in South Korea, and I got a sneak peek at new concepts that take things in boldly weird new directions.
Samsung Display showed us two so-called “slidable” designs. The first looks like a compact slab phone, dubbed the Flex Slidable. Starting at 4.7 inches, it expands via a sliding mechanism to reach a mammoth 7.2 inches.
According to Samsung, pulling one end of the device causes a hidden display to slide out. But I could see there being a button to let you slide the display on command. The actual process of unfurling was on the slow side, but again this was a demo concept.
The second slidable was even more intriguing, called Flex Hybrid. This concept also has a sliding display that grows to 7.2 inches, but it’s also foldable for even more versatility. It’s the first mobile device I’ve seen that combines the two technologies — foldable and slidable — into a single product. Foldable tech is applied to the left side of the screen and slidable technology to the right, which according to Samsung makes this a product “that can satisfy both portability and entertainment needs simultaneously.”
When are slidables coming?
So my question for Samsung Display was, how close are we to slidable phones actually becoming real shipping products?
“We have to consider the real-world usage pattern,” said Byung Duk Yang, executive vice president at Samsung Display. “So I think the display might be ready, but we should consider many aspects of the usage. When we have confidence that we can deliver meaningful innovation to users, then we are going to release the product.”
“It’s not easy, the slidable form factor. I know many people are very interested in slidable and stretchable (phones). But I’m an engineer, and from the engineer point of view there are many obstacles we have to overcome.”
— Byung Duk Yang, Executive VP, Core Component Technology Team, Samsung Display
Of course, it’s one thing to be able to show off a slick demo device. It’s quite another to deliver a sliding form factor that reaches the level of reliability Samsung Display has achieved with foldable panels.
We saw a mini torture chamber at Samsung Display that folds displays up to 500,000 times.
“It’s not easy, the slidable form factor. I know many people are very interested in slidable and stretchable (phones). But I’m an engineer, and from the engineer point of view there are many obstacles we have to overcome,” Yang said.
Zero bezels are (almost) here
Last but not least, I checked out Samsung Display’s nearly bezel-less display. How small are we talking? The 6.8-inch OLED screen’s bezels are so tiny I could barely make them out as I got up real close. Samsung positioned the panel behind a tablet-size display on purpose so you couldn’t tell where the small screen ended and the big one began.
The top size has a border of just 0.4mm, and the left, right and bottom have bezels that measure 0.6mm.
Samsung achieved this feat through advanced designed techniques, including minimizing the width of the outer wiring and using sophisticated module technology. The result is bezels that are up to 40% smaller compared to the phones shipping today.
Apple is rumored to be working on a nearly bezel-free handset for the iPhone 20, but Samsung could beat them to the punch.
