The foldable smartphone from Samsung, which has been much talked about for a fairly long period appears to be finally here, though up to now, only at a conceptual stage. The real device may be months or even close to a year away.
The foldable smartphone was first demonstrated by Samsung last month during its developer conference.
“There’s a device inside here. And it is stunning,” a Verge report quotes Justin Denison, SVP of mobile product marketing as saying.
There is a confusion on what Samsung will call this phone; some say the Galaxy X and others, the Galaxy F. Whatever the name, it is expected that when spread the device can offer 7.3 inches of real estate and can be folded horizontally; again, a vertically openable model may also be in the works.
The device could have multiple screens or at least one can run more than one application at a time and since the foldable phone is still work in progress, there may be many variations from now and when the final design is signed off. The display is being called the Infinity Flex Display.
The software input, mainly the operating system to be customized for the flexible display is being worked on by Google and its Android team collaborating with Samsung’s own team. The app developers for Android have also to be kept in the loop to adapt to these changes.
Samsung may have a number of competitors in the foldable smartphone space. Already, a California based little-known company Royole Corporation is selling its FlexPai foldable smartphone in the market. Others, like Xioami, Lenovo and LG are reported to be at different stages of developing their own versions of foldable smartphones or smartphones with flexible displays. Some have even teased the images of these devices for whatever it is worth. Even Microsoft could be a candidate in the foldable device race.
Experts, however, are still not sure if the technology will work and are posing several questions on how the manufacturers will address the challenges involved.