The company is still far from launching devices with flexible panels

Sep 25, 2013 07:08 GMT  ·  By

The buzz around Samsung’s flexible display and the potential for embedding it in future smartphones is at its peak. We reported yesterday on rumors regarding the possible release of a limited edition Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with flexible display and now new details on the handset maker’s plans have just emerged.

Yonhap News Agency reports that Samsung SDI’s CEO Park Sang-jin has told reporters that his company does not plan to launch a smartphone with flexible display per se. Instead, Samsung is looking into curved screens, which is not the same thing at all.

For those unaware, Samsung SDI is the company that provides battery products for the South Korean handset maker’s smartphones, as well as other portable devices.

“As plastic liquid crystal displays are strong enough to neither shatter even when dropped on the ground nor need frames, it is possible to produce devices with unique designs. The curved panels are not flexible,” said Park Sang-jin, CEO of Samsung SDI.

Moreover, Park has confirmed that Samsung is going to release a brand new portable device (smartphone?) that will pack “plastic organic light emitting diode panels.”

Basically, Samsung plans to launch a portable device that sports a plastic OLED screen. This is the same thing that LG is trying to do, but Samsung’s competitor is reportedly using flat screens for this particular device that is said to arrive on the market later this year.

According to the cited source, Samsung will launch a curved smartphone in the fourth quarter of this year, though there’s no mention whether this device will be a limited edition of an already existing handset or a completely new model.

Even though handset makers are still a long way from bringing flexible displays onto our hands, technology is improving fast and in a few years, these types of screens will probably become pretty common components of future smartphones.