Samsung is the frontrunner when it comes to foldable displays. It made a commercially viable Galaxy Fold last year. And from there on, it has never looked back. Now, a new patent reveals that Samsung wants to incorporate a foldable display on a smartphone that has a pop-up speaker with a resonance chamber.
The team at LetsGoDigital was quick to spot it. Samsung has filed the patent with the WIPO(World Intellectual Property Organization). The 35-page document, applied back in February this year, has been published on October 15, 2020. The schematics show a boxy design with rounded corners resembling the recently launched iPhone 12 series. The report says that of the front and rear panels, few components like Speaker, microphone. And front camera are stuck to the rear end of the front panel.
Apparently, they move with the panel and the flexible display. Hence, a top portion of the display moves up and folds inward probably by a mechanism inside. This creates a virtual resonance chamber for the speaker inside. A 3D design by Giuseppe Spinelli below shows a better idea of how the device would look like. Further, the report says that the document mentions a plastic polymer display. This suggests Colorless polyimide film(CPI) found on OG Galaxy Fold. However, we can’t rule out the possibility of UTG as well.
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Moving on, the schematics show the speaker units placed close to the sides. Accordingly, there are vents on three sides of the top portion. This pops-up as the display bents intently to create the desired sound effect. Now, this is not the first time we hear about the resonance chamber on Smartphones. Previously, LG launched the LG G7ThinQ in 2018 and it had a Boombox like sound effect. The speaker on LG G7ThinQ cleverly uses the inside of the Smartphone as a resonance chamber to get a loud, rumbling bass effect.
That said, Samsung’s approach is totally different, with a flexible display, pop-up speaker, a lifting mechanism, a cooling fan, etc. Further, if the report is true, the display will also support S-Pen. Samsung has been working on a foldable display that supports S-Pen for a while and looks like that might soon become true. All in all, this design classifies as a solid entrant of a flagship smartphone with a foldable display, pop-up speaker, S-Pen support, and more.
Do note that this is not a foldable smartphone but just has a foldable display. Hence, Samsung may debut the design anywhere like the S or the Note series in the future.
