As the race towards the first, consumer-ready flexible display smartphone continues, all eyes are on Samsung as the manufacturer is rumored to be ready to unveil its latest masterpiece this week, what the Korean media is calling the Galaxy Round.
Now that the period of smartphone announcements have mostly died down after the IFA tech show last month, and after Samsung launch of its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which has been so far met with mixed reviews, the tech world has refocused its attention on the next hi-tech fad: smartphones with flexible, or at least curved, displays.
Samsung has been, in some ways, at the forefront, with its YOUM flexible AMOLED technology unveiled last year. It then showed a regular flat smartphone sporting a curved display early this year. After the unveiling of the Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy Gear last month, word started to go around that Samsung’s next big innovation will be a Galaxy Note 3 sporting a flexible display. And this so-called Galaxy Round device will be seeing the light of day this week.
Although rumors say that the Galaxy Round will be sporting the same specs as the Galaxy Note 3, it is still quite unclear which of those specs will actually make it through. For one, the Wacom-based digitizer technology used might not bend so easily to Samsung’s will, which could mean that this smartphone will not possess the Note’s strongest selling point. And of course, the availability, not to mention the pricing of such an eccentric device is, at the moment, anyone’s guess.
VIA: phoneArena
To me this seems like a device they’ll make, just to say they have made a phone with a flexible screen. I don’t expect they’ll sell many
I can’t see any real world benefit of having a ticker like curved / viewable side of the phone. They could just develop this same ticker/notification functionality on a traditional screen, with their new windowed flip cases. If you don’t use a flip case, its almost pointless.
The only use for screen on the side of the phone is for capacitive power buttons and volume rockers. Of course Samsung would never put this onto their phones before someone else did though. That’s the only use I can see besides it looking cool.