14 DAY TRIAL // A few months ago, we told you LG formally introduced an OLED panel with a diagonal of 18 inches that could also be rolled into a cylinder to become a tube with a circumference of 3 cm / 1.18 inches across, taking another big step in the direction of consumer-friendly rollable electronics.
But even before LG actually announced this futuristic display, people had been making predictions about when we’d be able to see truly flexible panels as part of real-life technology.
Then, some time afterwards, Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) showcased at the Display Innovation 2014 trade show an 8.7-inch Super AMOLED display that could be folded in three.
So, as you can see, companies in the industry are avidly pushing towards this goal - making foldable gadgets available for mass-use.
Moreover, we heard that at MWC 2014, Samsung showed off a foldable tablet behind closed doors to VIP and partners, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that the Korean tech giant might be the first to roll out a smartphone with a flexible display like that.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 might be very unique
A new report coming out of Business Korea this week indicates that Samsung will be ready to roll out a foldable smartphone in 2016.
Samsung is not the only company working towards products that are considered futuristic at this point.
LG is also in the business of making transparent displays that might be applied to smartphones in the near future. For now, we’re bound to see transparent screens used in commercial or fighter aircrafts, heads-up displays for vehicles, billboards, and so on.
Back in 2014, an LG product roadmap leaked revealing that the company had plans to release foldable and rollable smartphone models starting with 2017.
The company has kept true to its initial goals of launching a bent handset in 2015, which arrived on the market in the form of the LG G Flex 2.
The current report also says that LG has already managed to put transparent displays on a promotional prototype that’s already available. But these panels still need to get mass-produced, which means we’re still far away from seeing this kind of products arrive in the wild.
