Samsung is preparing to launch a new line of smart phones and tabelts in 2012 that will feature flexible display screens.
The smart phones and tablets will be designed using AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) technology that is essentially a thin layer of organic compounds which transmit light when an electric current passes through two semiconductors on either side of the layer.
As such, the screens can be folded into a variety of shapes so long as the screen integrity holds.
According to sources, the prototype for the flexible display screens has been floating around since around 2010, when Samsung starting showing off a variety of similar concepts, but never claiming to go further than just toying with the idea.
However, back in June of this year, Samsung revealed that they were in the process of preparing phones with these display screens for mass production and market release soon.
Samsung intends to launch a line of “clamshell” phones, that will consist of a single large screen able to fold over itself in order to save space, and pack a larger screen onto a smaller device.
AMOLED technology has the advantage of being able to provide an incredibly high refresh rate for the screens. Reponse time for these screens can be under a millisecond. As well they enjoy higher contrast ratios than the average LCD screen.
In the future, they intend to expand on this technology to inscrease the size of displays that it can handle, such as for home televisions, as well as lower the cost. These phones should be on the market in 2012.
The technolgy certainly seems interesting, so here’s hoping that they expand on it. I can’t exactly say that I see too many uses for it at the moment, other than having a novelty phone, but something about it makes it seem that having a phone with a rubber like screen will be tougher to damage than the ones we’ve got these days. That’ll be the day, when they make a phone that can bounce right back up after you drop it, instead of having to spend 5 mins to pick up all the pieces.
Anyways, in other gadget news, check out 7 In-home efficiency gadgets and also find out what’s the difference between Plasma, LED and LCD screens.
