We’ve seen the Samsung Galaxy Fold (and Z Fold 2), a phone that folds into a tablet; We saw the Galaxy Z Flip, a “clamshell” phone that folds in half to make it more portable, and now we might know what Samsung’s next foldable phone will look like – as it rotates.
This comes from a recently published patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and discovered by Patently Apple.
It should be noted that the patent does not confirm that the company is working on such a phone, but given the publication of this phone along with similar patents for the Galaxy Z Flip 5G and Galaxy Z Fold 2, it seems possible that this phone is real. .
Well, this patent isn’t for a complete phone like other devices, but instead for a foldable technology – foldable screens. The patent shows a screen that wraps into a rectangular block, which you can pull out when you want to use the device. It is better as compared to dropdown displays.
There aren’t a lot of actual foldable screen phones shown here, so even if that phone does exist, it should probably take a few years. But technology like this can give you a huge screen in a relatively small device.
We will be calling this phone the Samsung Galaxy Z Roll for the time being, not because there is any indication that it will be called this, but because it makes sense given the company’s naming conventions for foldable phones.
Roll with it
(Photo credit: Samsung / Patently Mobile)
The rotatable screen technology may sound strange, futuristic, and a little silly, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about it.
LG is working hard on perishable TVs, and one of them might be launched by the end of 2020, although it may have an astronomical price. The company is also working on “expandable” displays for its smartphones.
So it looks like foldable screens may get big in the TV world, and maybe we’ll see technology come to smartphones as well. It makes sense – arguably there’s a bigger use case for phones that are cramming to take up less space than televisions.
We’ll have to see what the future brings to see how foldable screens work, whether Samsung uses them, and what the company’s next foldable phone looks like. We’ll keep you updated on the latest news when we get it, so stay tuned for TechRadar for it.
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