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Flexible Phones 'Out By 2013'
dryriver sends this quote from a BBC report:
"Imagine treating your phone like a piece of paper. Roll it up. Drop it. Squish it in your backpack. Step on it — without any damage. Researchers are working on just such handsets — razor-thin, paper-like and bendable. There have already been prototypes, attracting crowds at gadget shows. But rumors abound that next year will see the launch of the first bendy phone. Numerous companies are working on the technology — LG, Philips, Sharp, Sony and Nokia among them — although reports suggest that South Korean phone manufacturer Samsung will be the first to deliver. Samsung favors smartphones with so-called flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology, and is confident that they will be 'very popular among consumers worldwide.' Their screens will be 'foldable, rollable, wearable and more, [and] will allow for a high degree of durability through their use of a plastic substrate that is thinner, lighter and more flexible than conventional LCD technology,' says a Samsung spokesperson.'"
Better hope it's not 28 days delivery.
It "sounds" like a good idea, but honestly it isn't, it's just a worthless hyped up feature that weak minded people will buy into. Flexible phone? Keep it.
Is the battery flexible?
This is cool tech, but there is no way that "bendable" is a killer feature for a phone. I've never wanted to bend my phone, and I very much doubt enough people do to make this primary application of this technology. I suspect it will be used in ways that people haven't though of yet.
One question to ask would be the types of features that one would expect in these flexible phones in the near-term. Would they start out as having similar capabilities as current smartphones in the market, or would they be more "bread-and-butter" phones that will only see incorporation of additional capabilities in the long term?
Of greater interest to me is the possibility of flexible laptops and tablets. The reason why we have things like smartphones is because we can easily carry them around (e.g. in our pocket) and still have sufficient computational for day-to-day use. But if we can get flexible tablets/laptops to work, I think that'd be very useful in terms of packing greater amounts of computational power per (folded) surface area.
Cogito, ergo sum, fosho!
Mmmm... OLED... Tasty!
of your phone, you just dump it into the shredder?
Will the phones then end up as confetti?
It sounds like a revolutionary device and technology. I remember seeing/reading scifi genre giving way to super thin phones.
It could lead to disposable phones. Though i hate see the amount of e-waste that would cause.
However, I like thing with a solid backing.
Too bad Apple probably already has a patent on it
This is really cool and I hope to have a bendable phone next. I am beginning to hate the increasingly massive sizes of phones recently and this is a welcome feature to offset that so that I can actually bend and stretch my legs without having to adjust the massive bulge in my pocket. :3
The rest of the components, such as the mainboard and battery, aren't flexible. I was under the impression we would see some curved phones that are rigid rather than a fully flexible screen. I read this article and I didn't see any specific mention of what exactly what Samsung have planned, anyone know the answer?
Why would I care to have a flexible phone? What does this give me that a regular phone doesn't? These won't be "foldable" like a dollar bill so it won't go in my wallet. I doubt it would be durable enough to be indestructible so, again, why?
-SaNo
I don't want anything as sharp as "razor-thin" in my pocket.
Dammit! It should have been "anorexic models"!
Like the "Earth: Final Conflict" Global Link Communicator, this will allow the creation of small devices with large screens that unroll when in use.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I can hardly wait.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Uh - oh ... Apple is in trouble!
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
My prediction is:
- lots of strange wobbly phone designs
- that will be a pain to hold and text on
- whose main function is to go OOOO look how bendy I am!
I don't need a flexible phone. I need a phone that fits in my pocket. Unlike those overgrown iPod phones that everybody have at their desks nowadays. Apple didn't invent something new, they reinvented the desk phone, and added an Apple logo to it to get the suckers to buy it.
I see people all the time, running towards their desk/office to pick up their "smart" phone. That's not "smart", that's what people used to do 15 years ago, when their desk phone rang.
What the hell is wrong with Slashdot these days?? Really? Modding down a funny comment, because you are too stupid to get it?? Or because now the crazy Catholiban even have invaded this place?
Bach in the days, this would have gone to +3, Funny.
RIP Slashdot.
Paper and similar materials can keep bending forever with out ever breaking, so I can't see anything going wrong with this.
is flexible non-smart enough thank you.
Don't treat a $500+ gadget like your a toddler with a new toy and that wont happen.
I have sold my last 2 phones, to subsidize my next phone, in perfect condition. Because I keep them in a case and I show care in the way I handle them.
Quick, find patents for mobile devices and just add "on a flexible screen" and file a new one.
That's all it takes to get approval, right?
The phones today are too thin already. Thank goodness for extended batteries and cases, or I would be unable to use my S3.
I must be obtuse, because I don't see where this will benefit me. Albeit, there may be alternative uses to such devices that are paper thin.
They've had the ability to make cellphones waterproof for nearly 10 years and haven't bothered. My guess is it's an added expense and the make a lot of money from people that run their phones through the wash. Hell, I had one die after I left it on the counter while I took a shower. Think they've fix that with these "flexible" phones? I doubt it... and it's a far more common cause of phone failure than braking the actual phone.
razor-thin, paper-like and bendable
I see two problems with this, the obvious being...paper? Because paper is just so durable, that's what we need, phones that tear so we have to rebuy them once a week.
The biggest issue I see though, I use my phone as a media player, where are my headphones going to plug into when the plug is thicker than the phone?
Being flexible means that they could turn into i.e. bracelets, or other accesories. Probably it will change from a boxy thing that you must carry to a bunch of device parts that you will be wearing
Yuck. I don't want my phone, iPod or other devices bending. This sounds like it is going to be more fragile and less long lived. This sounds like more of the disposable society. Yuck.
I want durability. I want to buy a device and use it for years, pass it on in the family and have others be able to keep using it. I want devices that are durable and last, taking real world abuse.
I agree with you, there is a good reason that wallets are NOT rigid cuboids, like phones currently are. Flexi-phones will disappear into the pocket far better.
Maybe you got modded down because people don't want to use a smaller phone.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Why the fuck would we want our phones to be so thin? Do they think we want to cut vegetables and shoes with our phones?
Won't somebody please think of the hemophiliac children!
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Budget android phones with the dying feature that is the sliding keyboard will never be thin.
I would like for that to change, since ~1/2 an inch in 2012 is ridiculous. Out of all the other features for these flexible phones, I only want a little thinness to bleed into our budget tier.
Maybe then we can revive the hardware keyboard or improve it to a more desktop-like keyboard appearance (fat chance!)
So the OLED screen can bend...great, but what about the battery, various chips (from other partners) and antennae?
I felt it important to point out the correct acronym for flexible organic light emitting diode is FOLED.
We have to keep our acronyms straight, we're geeks! hahaha
It's just just limited to traditional "flexible but techie device" use cases.
If any of you have seen Macross Frontier... Ranka's phone has got to be a perfect example of what we might ultimately see with these technologies.
( and the same kind of people... i.e. kids will be the ones attracted to it. )
I personally find it silly, but you know there's going to be a market for that.
This just in...
2013 is the year that cell phones will be dropped as propaganda leaflets to the people of North Korea.
Now we need to achieve the holy grail - a screen that can expand, in much the same way one expands a browser window or photoshop/visio box by pulling it in the corner to keep the same proportion and from the side to elongate. Then your phone can expand to tablet size (or larger) when you need it.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Why would Apple be in trouble? They'll copy Samsung and Sony's phones
You assume Sony/Samsung will really be first with such a phone.
With Apple's all-consuming desire for thin devices, why would they not be the first to adopt this?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A whole device that is floppy everywhere is just not a practical thing to use as a phone.
But that device, with fixed components that roll up a screen inside could be very practical while also giving you a much larger screen area than most pocket devices.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What about hardware keyboards? Does this mean they'll end up killing them? Have they found a way to make them flexible too?
There's a video on the website for the Russian Wexler eink reader showing how the stuff can withstand a fair bit of flex. The screen is greyscale only but is already out there, if only in limited quantities.
While I like the colour screen on my phone it really sucks that I can't even see the button to answer the thing in full sunlight.
It depends on the bend. If it doesn't bend too far then the stress at any point (including at the bottom of tiny scratches and dents) will not be high enough for tiny little cracks to form or grow. Fatigue happens because the stress at the tip of a crack is enough to make it grow a little bit. You can break a cable tie by folding it back and forth because the plastic used is not very strong, but if it was made of kevlar you'd need to bend it into a much tighter curve or make a cut with a knife first so you've got something to concentrate the stress.
So there's a point where you could just bend it back and forth forever without any problems, but beyond that point it's going to crack by fatigue after you've bend it back and forth many times.
I want the phone to clamp around my wrist like a bracelet but be able to straighten it out for some functions. This coupled with a good Bluetooth earpiece and Ill be happy.
Ouch I got a paper phone cut, call a lawyer....