Samsung might release bendable, foldable smartphones in 2017

Earlier reports have claimed that Samsung will launch smartphones with bendable display in 2017. Now a fresh report from Bloomberg adding credence to earlier speculation, states that Samsung will announce two smartphones with bendable display in early 2017, possibly at next year's Mobile World Congress in February.

One of the these smartphone will have a 5-inch display that can be unfurled into a tablet-sized 8-inch screen, while the other bendable phone's screen will fold in half, similar to a cosmetics compact box. Already such a design have been seen in couple of Samsung's patent, which shows how foldable phones will be able to open and close in different modes using hinges. The report also confirms, that the bendable smartphones are being developed under "Project Valley", which we have been hearing for quite some time.

Samsung's rumored foldable smartphone are expected to come under a new Galaxy X series. They will have OLED display with 4K resolution, rumored for atleast one of the phones. Analysts have said that Samsung had to ensure that the thin, flexible transparent plastic substrates were durable enough to hold the OLED layer.

There's lot of challenges Samsung will have to overcome with the foldable smartphones. One is the user interface that will have to be fit into the devices unique-form factor.

Samsung is not the only smartphone maker playing with bending screens, its South Korean counterpart has also been working on bendable display since the beginning of 2016. LG at this years' CES showed off its 18-inch OLED display prototype that can be rolled into a paper. Additionally, Apple is also being supplied with OLED display from LG and Samsung, for experimenting on its 2018 iPhone. 

Source | Via