Huawei recently pipped Samsung to launch the world's first tri-fold smartphone, but the South Korean firm may be focusing on developing a phone with an even larger display.
Samsung Display Flex Note Extendable was shown off at CES 2024
Photo Credit: Samsung Display
Samsung is working on a smartphone that is equipped with a large, rollable display that could arrive next year, according to a report. This handset is said be equipped with a flexible screen that can be unrolled to form a much larger display. If the purported launch timeline is accurate, the device could arrive six years after the company launched its first foldable smartphone. Samsung has yet to announce plans to launch such a device, but the company has previously revealed novel display technologies including a hybrid device that folds and slides simultaneously.
The Elec reports (in Korean) that Samsung is developing a phone with a rollable screen that can be expanded to a 12.4-inch display — almost as large as some Android tablets. Such a device would also be larger than the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design that was recently unveiled in China with a 10.2-inch screen.
The device is also said to be equipped with an under-display camera (UDC), suggesting that the foldable phone will not include a camera cutout, offering an uninterrupted viewing experience. The large display on the device, coupled with the UDC technology could result in a high price tag for the purported rollable phone from Samsung.
This isn't the first novel foldable display to be shown off by Samsung. Over the past few years, the South Korean tech conglomerate has shown off new foldable phones that fold inward twice, like the alphabet G, while another prototype folds in the form of the letter Z. The company has also been granted patents for phones with rollable and triple-folding screens.
Samsung was recently pipped by Huawei — the Chinese firm launched the Mate XT Ultimate Design as the world's first triple-folding smartphone earlier this month, while a commercial version of the tri-fold displays shown off by Samsung is yet to be unveiled.
The Elec report states that Samsung has shifted its attention to rollable phones, and the firm is expected to launch the phone in the second half of 2025, and we can expect more details about the handset to surface in the coming months.
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