A Samsung executive reportedly spilled the beans that the company is thinking beyond “regular” foldable smartphones. For the uninitiated, Huawei CEO, Richard Yu earlier this week announced that the company would be unveiling a double foldable or a dual-fold smartphone as early as September this year. Hence, news that Samsung is working on something similar does not exactly come as a surprise. The company has showcased a lot of foldable designs in the past, but these were from Samsung Display, its display business. Therefore, the news about Samsung working on workable prototypes definitely is news, especially given that an earlier report did point out that it's struggling to make its production foldable designs thinner than its existing competitors, despite being the market leader in the space.
The news comes via PhoneArena, that pointed out quotes by Chung Yi, Executive Vice President and Head of Corporate Business Mobile/IT at Samsung Display. The executive from Samsung was a speaker at the recent IMID 2024 expo held in South Korea. The Samsung Display head broadly spoke about how Samsung is developing multiple form factors for its smartphones.
The EVP also reportedly said that the company is working on foldable technologies which would make the new AI generation of smartphones easier to carry. He also stated that with 6G technology on the horizon the demand for even bigger smartphone displays will go up and so Samsung is working on various product form factors like double-folding, multi-folding and even rollable displays. These should hopefully make it into functional production-ready devices by Samsung Mobile.
As far as foldable smartphone technologies go, Huawei seems to be at the top. Its recent Honor Magic V3 launched in China, is about to hit shelves globally in September. As Samsung struggles to make its foldables thinner than 12.1mm when folded, competitor Vivo's X Fold 3 Pro has managed a thickness of 11.3mm while Huawei's Honor Magic V3 measures just 9.3mm weighing in at just 226 grams, a lot less than the existing competition.
A thinner and lighter foldable also makes it easier to handle when closed. This makes a foldable smartphone feel like a regular flagship smartphone, with the added functionality of a large internal display when unfolded. While most (single-fold) foldables have managed to accommodate a large enough 8-inch main folding display so far, Huawei's upcoming dual-folding (or tri-folding) phone is said to have a massive 10-inch display that could mimic a regular tablet when unfolded.
