Last week the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that reveals their ongoing work on developing a foldable smartphone. While Samsung has been working on flexible and foldable devices for years, as noted in our extensive archives, flexible OLED displays have greatly advanced as noted recently at a German trade show. Earlier today Patently Apple posted a report about silver nanowire-based flexible touch display technology. The technology will allow OEMs to design phablets and tablets that could be folded and put in your pocket. Samsung's latest invention plans on doing just that.
The foldable design allows this future Galaxy smartphone to fold and reveal a hidden port connector bar as noted in patent FIG. 15 above. The smartphone will charge in the folded position as noted below in patent FIGS. 16 and 17.
A Note for Tech Sites covering our Report: We ask tech sites covering our report to kindly limit the use of our graphics to one image. Thanking you in advance for your cooperation.
The new phone is meant to be a higher-end smartphone as Samsung notes this design will support either a fingerprint sensor or an iris scanner, technologies reserved for higher end phones.
Samsung filed their U.S. patent application back in November 2015. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
Patently Mobile presents a detailed summary of patent applications with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details. About Posting Comments: Patently Mobile reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments.
Comments