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Samsung Says It Will Unveil a Foldable Smartphone this Year (cnbc.com)
Samsung will unveil details of a foldable smartphone later this year, the CEO of its mobile division told CNBC, amid rumors that such a device was in the works. From the report: DJ Koh said that "it's time to deliver" on a foldable device after consumer surveys carried out by Samsung showed that there is a market for that kind of handset. Speaking to CNBC, Koh was tight-lipped on how the folding screen could work but ran through the design thinking of the upcoming smartphone, particularly how Samsung is trying to differentiate the experience from a tablet once it is unfolded. "You can use most of the uses ... on foldable status. But when you need to browse or see something, then you may need to unfold it. But even unfolded, what kind of benefit does that give compared to the tablet? If the unfolded experience is the same as the tablet, why would they (consumers) buy it?," Koh said at the IFA electronics show in Berlin last week. Further reading: Samsung Plans To Overhaul Its Smartphone Strategy at the Mid-range Price Point.
..as this story unfolds.
I'll see myself out, sorry.
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just a flip phone where the screen spans both halves...
The Nintendo DS!
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I've been hoping to see a foldable device where you could get a larger screen, I wonder if the top will fold open then flip over so as not to waste the smaller screen?
It seems like people might like it for movies, but if there was much of a visible line where the fold was that might put people off.
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I've been waiting for a couple of years for a manufacturer to bring back the flipphone, but this time with a screen on both halves. It makes a lot of sense now that we have ultra-thin bezels and ever expanding phones. Women can't even fit half of the Android phones on the market into a standard pocket. Plus the phones are so thin now that doubling the thickness isn't a problem. IMHO phablets have significant usability problems that could be solved if you could just fold the thing in half when you put it away.
I read the internet for the articles.
Or is this again one of these ridiculously oversized phones of today that do not fit comfortably in any pocket?
If this phone is folded not considerably smaller than the unfoldable bricks they sell today, then I'm not interested.
It will also likely have the side effect of killing graphene research. Samsung is by far the leader in patents and funded research in graphene in an attempt to make a flexible display. For a long time this has been touted as the killer application for graphene.
However the rumors have been that this foldable phone will be OLED-based, not graphene-based. Without this, it doesn't appear that graphene has a killer application that's anywhere on the horizon; I expect this will seriously reduce any form of research into the material.
It would, of course, depend on the implementation. And there's no way I'd be buying the gen 1 version of it.
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It looks interesting but pretty thick. will make it harder to sneak into work. wonder about the fold, if it will eventually crack and/or cause dead spots.
And it will have the feature of dialing your boss while closed in your pocket.
Can see potential with this, but have to be pretty careful as well.
If this folds, I bet is is susceptible to creasing as well. And that could potentially damage the internals while also giving it a point of fatigue that will break it easier. Not to mention how angry people would be if that had to see that crease line in their product at all times.
And if they do it cheap enough, I predict seeing animated labels on cans, bottles, and boxes before too long which will suck. Hate it enough as it is I can't go to half the fast food places now and having to look harder for prices because their frigging menus are on TV screens and animate in some fashion. Last thing I want is to go to the grocery store and going down the isle with 50 boxes of Frost Flakes with Tony the Tiger on them all animated right beside the clone are of the Cheerios bee.
OK, let's put practical considerations away for a moment. If you could get a usable phone-sized device, combined with something you could expand in some way to a tablet sized device, then yes, I think this could work. Both technologically and in the market.
However bring back in the practicalities now. How does this work exactly? Any viable touch screen would appear to need a stiff backing, so you can get the positive feedback of a finger press hitting a solid surface. If it's a clamshell with a thin film OLED connecting the halves, then the screen itself is the hinge and the failure point for the entire device. If it's a rollup screen, OK that could work unrolled, maybe on a desk, but then how does it work rolled up?
Maybe it's like an old school projector screen, with a hard cylinder case that a flexible screen unrolls out of? But that would appear to have major problems operating when closed up, and other (perhaps lesser) problems when unrolled.
I'm baffled as to how you solve the operating environment of a flexible screen device. The device design is a puzzle, and I'm skeptical as to what the durability of a flexible screen really is.
History repeats, just stick around long enough, you will see it's true.
Now Flip-phones will be smart ones too..
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Instead of foldable, I'd like to have a phone that I can wad up & throw in the trash repeatedly.
The obvious answer is that you have a tablet when you want a tablet (to work, watch video, etc.), and something that fits in your pocket when you're carrying it around or using it as a handheld phone, so it's more convenient.
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