Samsung targets foldable screens for 2016

Foldable, flexible, and transparent displays have been around for a while now, but they remain pure concepts rather than actual products. Despite all the curved smartphones that have come out in 2014 and 2015, we still haven’t seen a truly flexible or bendable phone. Now, a report from Business Korea hints that a fully foldable smartphone could hit the market as early as 2016 from none other than Samsung.

The Samsung Galaxy Round just the first in a new generation of flexing phones.

Presenting a roadmap of future plans to industry experts, Samsung revealed that 'curved' screens, like the one on the front of the Round, will give way to 'bended' screens next year. Then 'foldable' displays will come along in 2016 and through 2017.

But Samsung identifies "technical challenges" before screens can begin to fold. And even if the screens themselves can fold, that doesn't necessarily mean we'll have folding phones any time soon -- not until folding batteries, processors and other phone gubbins are perfected too.

The Round, flexing its muscles in South Korea, has a concave screen. Although it is on sale to the public, it's reported to be a proof-of-concept and won't necessarily be made widely available in its present form. A spokesperson told me today that "Samsung currently has no plans to bring the Galaxy Round to the UK market."

At an event for analysts reported by SammyHub, Samsung also revealed that sales of the S line of smart phones and Note line of tablets will have collectively sold 100 million by the end of this year. That's a lot of Samsung Galaxy S2, S3 and S4 phones, not to mention a whole heap of Note, Note 2 and Note 3 tablets.

Inspite of all this optimism, the technology for foldable electronic devices is still a thing of science fiction. 

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