After several teasers, South Korean tech giant Samsung has unveiled its foldable smartphone at its fifth annual developer conference in San Francisco. When unfolded, this device will serve as a tablet and when folded, it will serve as a smartphone. Samsung said the mass production of the foldable tablets would be started in the coming months.
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“The foldable display lays the foundation for a new kind of mobile experience. We are excited to work with developers on this new platform to create new value for our customers. We cannot wait to see where the technology and collaboration takes us,” DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT and Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics, said in a statement.
Samsung has used ‘Infinity Flex Display’ for the foldable smartphone that lets users open and close it again without any degradation.
“Because the Infinity Flex Display is a next generation platform, Samsung invites developers to participate in this journey from the beginning. Working collaboratively with Google and the Android developer community, Samsung will maximise the potential of this new form factor to create an optimised foldable user experience,” the company added.
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Samsung said, “The Infinity Flex Display together with One UI delivers a new kind of mobile experience allowing users to do things they couldn’t do with an ordinary smartphone. Users now have the best of both worlds: a compact smartphone that unfolds to reveal a larger immersive display for multitasking and viewing content. The app experience seamlessly transitions from the smaller display to the larger display as the device unfolds. In addition, users can browse, watch, connect and multitask without losing a beat, simultaneously using three active apps on the larger display.”
Other companies are also working on foldable smartphones running Google’s Android software from last few years. Recently, Huawei confirmed that it is working on a device with a flexible screen. LG Electronics is also expected to launch soon. But LG didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In any case, it’s uncertain whether the foldable device will have mass interest, particularly when the foldable gadgets are required to cost more than $1,000. Royole Corp., a small company recently announced FlexPai foldable phone and the company is planning to offer early forms of its FlexPai foldable-screen smartphone for $1,300 to $1,500 once it goes to the U.S.