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​Samsung considers bendable displays for 2017: Report

Samsung is reportedly considering launching two phones with bendable screens early next year but it remains to be seen whether this time it will be for real.
Written by Cho Mu-Hyun, Contributing Writer

Samsung is considering launching two new smartphones that will have bendable screens, Bloomberg reports.

Citing unnamed sources, it said one will be able to be folded in half while another will have the ability to be furled to become a handset or a tablet. Both will be made of organic light-emitting diode (OLED), like that used in the current Galaxy line.

A Samsung spokesman said "we can't comment on market speculation".

OLED displays do not require a backlight so is easier to configure to fold than it is for Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD).

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SAMSUNG CSC

Both Samsung and LG have shown prototypes of foldable displays in tradeshows, but the tech has never been applied to a commercial product so far.

Samsung's Edge series technically used flexible displays that are indeed folded to shape the edge but consumers cannot configure it to other shapes.

Rumours of a truly foldable phone circulated in South Korea around the time of the launch of the Galaxy S3 in 2012 but it never materialised.

Besides the display, components must be malleable as well -- especially the battery, which is even harder to tweak. A low-yield rate in factory lines has also forced them to be too expensive.

Samsung Display, Samsung Electronics' display supplier, is the largest producer of small-sized AMOLED screens for smartphones. It is reportedly going to supply them to Apple for the latter's phone next year.

The company's display innovation goes beyond the smartphone, having recent revealed plans to launch transparent displays as part of its B2B business. It has also installed displays that act as mirrors in South Korean barbershops.

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