At CES 2013, Samsung wowed a lot of attendants when it first showed off its flexible display technology. While a bit of that technology has made it to their flagships with the Edge suffix, we are still not close to getting a fully foldable phone.
The reason for that stems from Samsung still finding it hard producing quality foldable phones in large quantities. The smartphone giant may be applying for patents left, right, and center but the challenge is in mass production.
Samsung’s aim is to make the device very thin such that its thickness when folded doesn’t exceed 10mm. That means a thickness of about 4mm when unfolded. Samsung is also advertising the phone as a “luxurious ultra premium device”. That means it has to make use of high quality materials that are durable of which some are usually not easily bendable.
Take for example the adhesive used to attach the display to the rest of the chassis. It has to be very flexible and also durable to withstand several folding and unfolding actions. So while Samsung really wants to see foldable phones reach the market as soon as possible, it also needs to be careful to prevent releasing a device that will suffer from issues like the Galaxy Note 7.
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So until Samsung gets everything right, mass production will have to be put on hold. A Korean media says Samsung is preparing to showcase a number of prototypes in Q3 this year.
(Source)
