Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Shows Off a Foldable Prototype That Merges Phone and Tablet (usatoday.com)
At its developer conference Wednesday, Samsung introduced its new Infinity Flex Display, a foldable OLED screen that can allow manufacturers like Samsung to create new, unique devices such as a phone that folds out to become a tablet-like device with a larger display. From a report: "The foldable display lays the foundation for a new kind of mobile experience," said DJ Koh, president and CEO of Samsung IT and mobile communications division, in a statement. "We are excited to work with developers on this new platform to create new value for our customers." Although the product shown Wednesday was just a prototype, the company plans to release a consumer product that features the technology in the coming months. In addition to creating the hardware, Samsung has partnered with Google to work on the software to make sure apps work seamlessly regardless of whether the display is folded in a "smartphone-like" mode or opened fully as akin to a tablet.
This was pretty cool the first ten times companies did it.
I expect it to explode in the market.
The question is, will it still work when unfolded?
If the clip is to be believed, the display continuity is the extra feature that makes this a never-been-done-before item.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
This could make for an awesome device. I currently own both a phone and a tablet simply because there are so many things which work better with a tablet - but a tablet has obvious, significant portability issues.
Whether this is truly game-changing, though, will come down to the mundane details regarding just how reliable and durable the tech turns out to be.
#DeleteChrome
Here's the important bit
So the obviously correct way to do this ( one display wrapping around on the *outside* ) was too tricky for Samsung, but not for Royole, a company I've never heard of ?!
People have been talking about foldable phones as a killer application for graphene. Samsung is the leader in graphene research, but this phone appears to be OLED.
That is a major setback towards commercialization of graphene or other nanomaterials like silicon nanowires; if Samsung found it not valuable to pursue graphene in this application then it's likely not feasible.
...for next Galaxy Note one will have to fold "phablet" 5 times to fit it into the pocket.
Remember when camera modules were expensive and the "obvious" way to have both front and rear facing cameras was to have one camera on a mechanical rotating swivel (like the Sony Clie PEG)? Sometimes the "obvious" solution is also the dumb solution.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I bet it will get an ugly seam at that very edge after the first few uses. And then it will start to outright break. Of course taking the entire line of pixels with it that crosses it.
I actually like foldable screens, but excuse me if I observe this for at least 4-5 years, and see how the earliest model will fare then. before I ever invest a single penny into it.
It's like the elections: Every four years, before the election propaganda machine starts up, the goldfish brains seem to trigger their internal flashy-thing again, wiping out that they learned that everything and all that was promised were complete lies, and both parties did nothing but betray the "voters".
I see no other explanation for why you still seem to not have learned that they all say they are "about to", but never will.
What better way to make your device fail over time than a literal feature?
Those pixels at the curve are going to shit themselves so hard over time.
Silicon simply cannot function well in such a state. At least nobody has shown me otherwise. And I doubt this will either. I will eat my own toenails if these aren't filled with flaws over 2 years.
We need graphene levels of strength to endure shit like that. (or similar substrate)
I would LOVE for it to work, I really would. But I don't expect it any time soon to work without huge flaws.
This will be the OLED of the current generations of hardware, where they slowly faded and died in the earlier models. (is it even fixed actually?)
Folding screens would open a whole generation of new useful devices in small form factors.
Imagine a laptop that could have a whole screen fold out from the sides to make it widescreen (or "widerscreen").
Or a phone in the width of a typical small ("travel") deodorant, around 2cm, that unravels. (this would be more graphene level hardware though, since it would allow for considerably tinier computers)
The screen on the side that is exposed could show you useful stuff without needing to activate the entire screen at once, and still have a basic functional UI for quick access to stuff.
Smartwatch that becomes "smartphone". (small, admittedly, but still more useful)
But then, early adopters usually do suffer the worst when it comes to failure rates. That's usually how it works.
First generations of new functional devices tend to have some unnoticed flaws that get fixed eventually. (or the device gets dropped entirely as a failed product due to never growing outside its niche)
I was a big adopter of the Continuum feature in Windows Mobile. A phone htat can be turned into a quasi PC. I used it at work, where I had a dock plugged into a 27" monitor. The phone correctly would connect to our LAN (but not domain), be able to use printers, network shares (sort of), and allow me to remote desktop into various other PCs. While nice, I felt it really wasn't what I needed. I often want my mobile device (phone) and PC / tablet seperate.
In fact, I recall Dona Sarkar at Microsoft discussing how MS wasn't going to go this route because they don't see the future being a 2-in-1 device like a phone and mini tablet. The phone will be slightly too big and the tablet slightly too small, she mused. I tend to agree. When I want a tablet, I want a 10" or 12" device and don't want it integrated with my mobile phone.
I'll wait and see on this one.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Hay guys did you know that Samsung is about to release a foldable tablet? This isn't like all those other times they said they were about to release a foldable tablet because _______________
But it didn't catch on.
Until I see a movie of this thing, not still photos I kinda suspect it's just a kludge.
What I think might be better than this would be the haptic combination of normal phone and a google glass. So the idea would be you hold your regular phone up and the google glass paints a larger phone arround it. You then get all the tactile interactions with the physical part of the image-- the actual phone but the benefits of a larger display when you need it.
Thus the etherealness and problems with eye focus and gorilla arm go away.
So for example, with a projected phone that you are supposed to treat like a touch screen you force the hand-eye feedback coordination problem onto the human's brain,. THey have to align their hand to the imaginary screen in free space. But if you reverse this and have the google glass augmenting the iphone by tracking it all this unatural hand eye coordination goes away. it just becomes something you naturally can interact with even though it's not there because it acts just like a physical tablet would.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Usually, if you are proud to show something, you do not deliberately switch off the lights to make it barely visible. But Samsung did exactly that. So something must be very, very wrong with the prototype. (Maybe like with the Flexpai, where the display surface looks like a shriveled lamination?)
They should've made this before making the tablet and phone.
[($)]
Now only if Android on a tablet wasn't an infuriating shit show mish-mash of applications that don't rotate or scale properly to the larger screen.
Wow!
And Slashtards whine about iOS...
It's annoying to carry a big tablet everywere you go! Now, this is the best concept and I would get this as soon as possible for myself when it's done.
No?
Then it's bullshit.
Call us when we can.
Never saw this design as being really any better then what we have now with bigger screens and thin designs.
YAWN...Westworld has had this tech for, like, forever. Samsung is just playing catch up to Delos like they always have. Old news.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I've long thought a useful future design would be a phone that looks like (or even functions as) a pen while in basic telephone mode. One end is the earpiece, the other the mic. When it's tablet time, you then pull and unscroll a flexible screen up out of it's side, as two opposing armatures spring out from each end to hold the top in place, you now have a very thin tablet with a round base. Obviously that kind of screen tech isn't here yet, but that would seem pretty nifty to me, and certainly easy to pocket when done.
Other than fragility (unless the armatures were flexible too) and the fact screen tech isnt there yet, what would be some caveats to that kind of design?
Having to unscroll every time to read a text just came to mind, and it probably couldn't have a screen wider than 4 inches, or 8 or 9cm.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.