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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.'"
Is the battery flexible?
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!
I've cracked the screen on my last 2 phones because of the stupid "gorilla glass". A flexible phone would be much more impervious to damage from being chucked around (accidentally or otherwise). I don't see how it's "weak minded" of me to want a more durable phone, while retaining the benefits of a smart phone.
which is totally what she said
of your phone, you just dump it into the shredder?
Will the phones then end up as confetti?
I look forward to the day i can treat my smartphone the same way i used to treat my old Nokia dumb phone. Like the piece of low end consumer electronic it is. My cat's been gnawing at my new phone, and having a tooth sized hole where your home button used to be sucks ass. So grats on being impervious to marketing hype, i look forward to having a phone i don't have to watch over like a small child.
... whatever
I've cracked the screen on my last 2 phones because of the stupid "gorilla glass"...
No, you cracked the screen on your last 2 phones because you are careless, so much so that they cracked in spite of being made of gorilla glass.
I don't want anything as sharp as "razor-thin" in my pocket.
To me, bendable means that I can put it in my pocket and have it conform to the curve of my leg. I could put it in my back pocket and it might be less uncomfortable. Hell, if it's paper thin and as flexible as the summary claims it will be, I could stick the damn thing in my wallet.
Whatever "killer feature" even means, I'm in for one.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
No, you cracked the screen on your last 2 phones because you are careless, so much so that they cracked in spite of being made of gorilla glass.
I know people like this. Occasional accidents happen to everyone. Frequent and repeated damage is not an accident. Those who frequently smash gorilla glass will end up destroying a floppy phone just as quick. Oops, I dropped it in a blender. Oops, I dropped it on a burning grill.
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.
Add a stylus and some handwriting recognition, then invent some kind of adhesive micropayment system and a physical distribution/collection network, and it could be used as a high latency message transmission system?
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?
Because the phone would be more durable. Wouldn't be a big deal to keep it in your back pocket while sitting. And seeing as small as phones are now, I could see these being small enough to fit in your wallet. Ya, there ya go. A disposal backup phone you can keep in your wallet for emergencies.
Ever break a phone by dropping it? Won't have that problem with these phones.
You also forgot "get off my lawn" in your post.
Be seeing you...
Wait, 200 lbs is considered heavy now? Uh-oh.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Thinner and lighter are always nice
I submit there is a point at where a device can be too light and thin with the way we need to interact with them. For me, the critiques over the iPhone 5 were right; it is too light. I would fumble that all around, though if it was flexible, perhaps it wouldn't matter but it seems you're just trading one problem for another. (That and call me when batteries become paper thin, let alone electrical contacts that are still good after being flexed a few tens of thousand times.)
I agree with you that this form factor won't be super useful. However, flexible displays could be integrated into an incredibly useful design. Something like the Globals form the old scifi show Earth: Final Conflict would be incredibly handy. If you havent' seen the show, it's an oblong device that rolls out to show a fairly large screen. pic. By storing the screen away from view, it becomes a whole lot more damage resistant.
...That actually wasn't supposed to be the inflammatory part. Give me a break; I haven't gotten my coffee yet.
200 pounds is enough to easily break a phone in one's back pocket. Americans are just dumb enough to do it repeatedly.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
That is why most phones do not have the edge of the glass touching the surrounding material so the energy transfer is not so direct.
As a general rule the insurance is not worth it. The prices to repair by the OEM are generally not that much more than the deductible you have to pay to get it replaced. Once you add in the fact that over two years you will have already paid for another device, it is doubly a ripoff.
At least Americans know not to wear speedos to the beach when they have huge guts, unlike a lot of Europeans. ;p
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
You make a good point. I don't recall any Speedo-wearing whales at the Florida beaches...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Those were visiting Europeans ;p
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
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.
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
Agreed, they've done quite well without the technology and Samsung has done quite well with it (Galaxy, Note, etc.). Primarily because the market that requires very accurate color representation is extremely small.
The real pain will set in when OLED goes mainstream in TVs and monitors in the next couple years. That's when Samsung's foresight over the last decade, coupled with Apple's misstep, will pay off huge dividends.