The mobile industry has been tracking the rumored Samsung Galaxy X prototype phone for months, slowly pushing back the said launch timeline for what’s supposed to be a successor to the general Galaxy S line. As waves of details about the upcoming Galaxy S9 and S9+ come in, details on what this supposed Galaxy X with a foldable display will be remain unknown. Reports with new details out of CES 2018 are at least giving us something to work with.
Samsung didn’t have anything public to say about the Galaxy X (if that is its real name) at CES. But as many companies do, Samsung took the opportunity of having so many dignitary industry people together to show off what it’s working on to partners. Reports say that this year, that included the Galaxy X. The device in question has a 7.3-inch display that can fold in the middle. Multiple versions were shown, with different capabilities such as folding both inwards and outwards.
Reports say the inward-folding model (protecting the screen when closed) is the design with the most traction at the moment. The outward-folding one, on the other hand, includes “more advanced next-generation technology.” The other specs of the phone aren’t yet known.
Samsung has been putting curved panels in production phones since the Galaxy Note Edge that eventually spawned into a phenomenon that has become a hallmark of Samsung’s high-end devices. The company has been experimenting with bendable OLED panels for years, going so far as to show them off publicly as technology demonstrations. The question remains if it could make devices with displays that could be actively bent or folded multiple times as a regular part of use. The display would have to be very robust; however there remains the issue of what covers the display panel.
We’ll hear more about the Galaxy X at the MWC 2018, which kicks off at the end of February. That’s where Samsung has already said it will unveil the Galaxy S9 and S9+.
