Samsung has yet again made our jaws drop with its latest prototype, the Youm flexible OLED display. It is packed with a lot of tricks up its sleeve, with the company even showcasing a video containing the future grandkids of current Galaxy phablets. Display prototypes of a folding tablet (yes the screen also folds into two), a rolling tablet, and a bendable phone made attendees of the conference drool as soon as they were unveiled.
In Samsung’s CES 2013 keynote, the company’s executives did not exactly reveal when these gadgets will hit the shelves, or how much they will be priced, but the announcement has immediately created a lot of things to look forward to.
Plastic, thin screens are coming
Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung Mobile Display, proved that there will be an upcoming trend for flexible displays when he bended a prototype Youm display device and showed how thin it is. The screen might not even be thicker than a needle, and it can be bended in a 45-degree angle or greater. This is actually the most awesome part, and the audience was only able to let out a collective gasp after seeing the flexibility of this new display.
The current glass screens of Samsung Galaxy devices are vulnerable to damage, and of course, glass can never be flexible. So this concept of using plastic for the devices to render it virtually unbreakable is indeed, genius.
The Samsung Youm panels are adopting film-based encapsulation and have a sandwich of layers to make them more flexible. It also uses TFT layers rather than glass substrates to help the display bend easily and aid in the material’s flexibility.
Samsung promises wraparound displays
For the comfort of users, Samsung will be wrapping its Youm display around devices so it can cover two or more surfaces. The sample prototype actually has its screen facing the front and the side, letting you view messages even without having to check your phone’s main display. It seems that this innovation of extending the screen to the sides will be seen in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note III or Samsung Galaxy S IV, based on how a prototype smartphone presented during the keynote address looked.
The tech giant clarified that the Youm display will most likely exceed 4.5 inches on its devices, and will be seen on the next line of phablets and smartphones that they will release in the coming months.
Samsung did not promise that Android will remain as the preferred operating system for most of its phones, and this might be because they’re already cooking up a mobile OS of their own dubbed Tizen. It will be better, though, if keep their handsets running on Android for the meantime because it’s already a well-established platform used by many. It would be difficult to have an awesome bending phone without your favorite Evernote, Temple Run and RingCentral apps on it.
The question now is: Are we ready for these new generation devices? And are we ready to pay more for the Youm technology?
