Samsung pioneers three-sided mobile display
Sources close to the company claim that the release of a three-sided display screen could come as early as next year
Samsung Galaxy Round
The world’s number one handset manufacturer looks to advance its standing in the industry further still with the release of a Galaxy smartphone, equipped with a three-sided display screen. The specifics of the release remain unclear, but two unnamed persons familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that the innovation could be unveiled in the second half of next year.
The phone will reportedly use an updated version of Samsung’s Youm technology, which was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year and looks to signal the start of bendable, rollable and foldable screens in the mobile market.
The Galaxy Round was released last month and remains the world’s only curved mobile display screen. Regardless of the tech specs, a three-sided screen is indicative of Samsung’s ardour to advance the industry ahead of rival competitors Apple.
The Seoul-based business has ramped up its efforts to diversify its existing portfolio of late, having entered into the smartwatch market and filed a design patent for eyewear capable of answering phone calls during exercise.
The company’s activities precede a suspected slowdown in the high-end smartphone market, with penetration reaching a critical point and consumer allegiances becoming ever more firmly entrenched in particular brands.
Research firm, HIS believe that the flexible display market will reach near 800 million unit shipments by 2020, up from 3.2 million in 2013. “Flexible displays hold enormous potential, creating whole new classes of products and enabling exciting new applications that were impractical or impossible before,” said Vinita Jakhanwal, director for mobile and emerging displays and technology at HIS in a recent press release. “From smartphones with displays that curve around the sides, to smart watches with wraparound screens, to tablets and PCs with roll-out displays, to giant video advertisements on curved building walls, the potential uses for flexible displays will be limited only by the imagination of designers.”
Regardless of HIS’s predictions, Same Gee, technology analyst at Mintel, told CNBC, “I don’t think it will really set the market on fire because I’m not sure what it adds beyond extending the screen on the phone. And whilst it is nice to have extra screen, it is not a revolutionary step.”
