Samsung To Launch Smartphones With Bendable Screens in 2017, Reports Bloomberg (bloomberg.com) 65
Samsung plans to launch two smartphones with bendable screens. The South Korean technology conglomerate could showcase these two phones as early as the Mobile World Congress tradeshow next year, according to Bloomberg, which cites sources "familiar with the matter." The publication adds that one of the phones will fold in half like a makeup compact, whereas the other with a 5-inch display would fold out into a larger tablet-style device. From the report: The devices using organic light-emitting diodes could be unveiled as soon as early 2017. That would likely give it a head start on new Apple Inc. iPhones. The second Samsung model will have a 5-inch screen when used as a handset, that unfurls into a display that's as large as 8 inches, similar to a tablet, the people said.As for more immediate future plans, the Galaxy Note 6, which is expected to launch later this year, might ship with the moniker "Note 7". This would allow Samsung to put its flagship phablet's branding in line with its current smartphone numbering. Samsung launched the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge earlier this year. (Editor's note: Bloomberg website, though very credible, has pop-up videos, which some of you may find annoying. Just in case, here's an alternate source.)
Even if this proves to be a meaningless novelty... (Score:2)
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be more useful is a watch
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That seems needlessly sexist. I'm sure you were trying to make a point, but you seemed to have forgotten to do so entirely.
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So will the 99% of women who insist on putting their phones in their back pockets and sitting on them.
I'm sure you just typed without thinking (or just have limited life experience), but let the record show I'm male & way back in 2005 my first 5" Nokia linux tablet lasted about 7mo because I had quickly started carrying it in a back pocket (sans bulky hard-cover) as a VOIP phone.
Free wifi calls & 'fast' internet in the palm of my hand was amazing... right until I sat down on a table-edge. Crunch.
Everybody does it, even geeks.
Will they have one... (Score:3, Insightful)
...that doesn't "phone home"?
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1. Bring the phone in download mode
2. Install cyanogenmod
3. ??
4. Profit!!
Re: Will they have one... (Score:2)
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Phone home where? Samsung phones can be setup without a Google account, and without a Samsung account. The only phoning home that has been observed has been to check for updates.
Now do you have some evidence to the contrary?
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Will they have one that doesn't "phone home"?
Oh come on, Eric! Just call your mother already, she misses you.
In other news.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
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The difference is, Apple will have invented it.
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Apple will invent it. Samsung are just cheating with their time machine.
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Indeed.
Notice that both yours and my comments were down-modded by a butthurt Apple fanboy.
Bloomberg website is spammy (Score:4, Interesting)
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Bah, you kids and reading the articles. ;)
By the way everyone, the F in RTFA is for "Fucking", not "Fine", and "trolls" are a reference to fishing, not things that live under bridges.
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So do we finally get the Global Link... (Score:2)
Fold-able is NOT Bendable (Score:5, Informative)
The idea that Samsung is trying is fold-able screens which have a curved separate display in the middle of the fold. Much like the S7 Edge has curved separate displays at the edges that are really separate. It looks like one screen but is not. Same here, they will have multiple screens joined in the middle at the fold by a curved screen. So, no part of the screen actually moves. Sort of an illusion combined with marketing-speak.
Nothing new to see here. Please move along....
Re:Fold-able is NOT Bendable (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing new apart from that this hasn't been done before...
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This looks pretty bendable to me. [youtube.com]
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That looks a lot like the "global" PDA/phone/computer/scanner from Earth Final Conflict. :)
I really wish they would have continued that show past the second season. ;) (Seasons 3-5 sucked because of the constant turnover of cast, writers, directors, and abandoned original story arc)
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Yeah, I don't really trust flexible screens, after seeing them in action. They seem way too fragile and after a few hundred open/close cycles a lot start losing rows or columns of pixels as their driver line detaches from the screen from the repeated folding/unfolding.
Sure with a high-res display it may not be noticeable, but probably after a year it will be quite easy to see there's missing elements.
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Those are the problems they're trying to work out before it hits the market in any device.
Remember, just a few years ago OLED was just a curiosity with a very high failure rate, as was the case with high intensity LEDs and both were very expensive when they first came out and are now cheap, reliable and durable. Now both are commonplace, cheap, and very reliable. The same will be the case with flexible displays. I doubt that truly foldable displays will become reality but bendable/rollable definitely will.
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The idea that Samsung is trying is fold-able screens which have a curved separate display in the middle of the fold.
Is that a guess? Because it sounds like a guess.
One of the phones is said to "bend" like a compact. That doesn't necessarily mean separate displays.
The other is said to be a 5" phone which "unfurls" into an 8" display.
And that seems to be about the sum totality of the information available.
Apple Already Did This (Score:1)
Why all the excitement... (Score:1)
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Apple to launch iPhone w/bendable screens in 2018 (Score:3, Funny)
Apple's research division Samsung's efforts will result in a bendable-screen iPhone in 2018. ;)
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The iPhone 6 was released in 2014. This is just Samsung copying Apple AGAIN!
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Apple's innovation was half-baked though; it was bend once. I think Samsung's goal is for their phones to be bendable multiple times without destroying the screen or battery. ;)
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No woosh there. I totally get it. Note the ";)"
Does it also come with pre-loaded ads? (Score:2)
If Samsung was the last phone maker in the world I'd be using two tin cans and a string rather than buying anything from them.
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It takes forever for Slashdot to load.
Unfurls (Score:2)
And again, Apple beats them to it... (Score:2)
Ugh, NO! (Score:3)
Stop putting useless features and overspec'd hardware in phones to maintain your price points. No one needs a 36 megapixel camera. No one really wants a 6mm thick phone, they want battery capacity which requires.... volume and thickness! They want RAM and processing power.
Some of us want features we can't get anymore, like full QWERTY keyboards. Some of us know that onscreen keyboards suck on principle.
If you're willing to make a flipbendy phone, you should be willing to make slider phones again: Full keyboard, 12Mpx camera, Snapdragon 820, removeable SD card and battery. It's not too much to ask.
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I really don't give a shit about a keyboard. I don't do a lot of typing on this thing, and I'm not willing to sacrifice screen space for a physical keyboard, and slider phones are bulky and delicate.
What I really want is some decent software for a change. Like not loading the phone with a bunch of crapware I can't uninstall, and being able to easily install 3rd-party ROMs.
A bigger battery would be good though, and make sure it's easily removed, along with a microSD card. The battery bit shouldn't even be