LG Electronics has been offering almost the same design for its flagship smartphones since past few years, making it difficult to differentiate between them just by looking at them. However, the company is now finally ready to adopt new design.

The South Korean company has now said that it will use an altogether new design language for its upcoming flagship smartphone. LG describes the design as “a nod to the natural world with a visual form factor that differs from the industry trend.”

The company will be using a new “3D Arc Design” element which involves symmetrical curves on the display and the back of the phone, but LG is yet to reveal how that would be unique. It will come with a “raindrop” camera that will feature smaller lenses and an LED flash below the larger main camera, evoking dripping water. The company says that this is in opposition to current trends for big camera bumps.

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While LG has not yet revealed much about this nor details about the upcoming smartphone, but it seems that this new design language will not be limited just to flagship smartphones but the entire range of devices could adopt it.

Cha Yong-duk, VP and Mobile Design Lab Head at LG said in a statement that “this handset will be a first-look at the competitive edge we will be bringing to every LG smartphone going forward.”

As per the reports, the company could launch a new smartphone on 15th May 2020 with this new design language. The said device could come powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G SoC with 5G connectivity support.

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We heard it dozens of times: 5G and foldable smartphones have been the main revolutions of 2019 in the mobile sector. A lot of smartphone manufacturers came up with their own form factors experimenting foldable display: this year we saw a lot of crazy foldable designs that will or may hit the shelves in the next future. In this article, we collected all the craziest foldable designs we have seen so far. The article only includes smartphones with flexible displays, so do not be surprised after not finding devices such as the upcoming Microsoft Surface Duo or the Surface Neo which are just devices with dual displays.

Outward folding by Huawei

Among the foldable smartphones in commerce, the most appreciated was the Mate X by Huawei. It has an outward folding design that allows using both the displays generated when the display is closed. The secondary display also allows you to use the quad rear camera for selfies as well, that is one of the main reasons why I appreciate it so much. While unfolded, the foldable smartphone has a diagonal of 8 inches, while the primary display you can see when the smartphone is folded has a 6.6-inch diagonal. The phone has a unique AMOLED panel with a Full HD+ resolution and it is powered by a Kirin 980 chipset paired with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of internal storage. In 2020 Huawei will release an upgraded version called Mate Xs which will boast a more advanced Kirin 990 chipset that is the same found on the Mate 30 series.

Learn more about Huawei’s foldable design by clicking here.

Inward folding by Samsung

The Galaxy Fold by Samsung is the world’s first foldable smartphone released by a mainstream manufacturer. It has a completely different design compared to the Huawei Mate X. The Samsung Galaxy Fold comes with an inward folding design, meaning that the foldable display is placed internally. While the smartphone is folded, the flexible display is totally covered, but the phone features a smaller external display with 4.6-inch size. While unfolded, the smartphone has a 7.3-inch diagonal. It even sports two camera departments: a triple camera on the rear side with a variable focal aperture and a triple camera near the foldable display.

Learn more about Samsung’s foldable design by clicking here.

Dual folding by Xiaomi

Xiaomi is working on a foldable smartphone with a double fold design. The company recently showcased it in an official promo video in which you can clearly see a device that can be folded twice with the phone’s display on the outside. According to the company, the MIUI has been adjusted accordingly with gesture controls and other features, and the phone is able to become either a tablet or a traditional smartphone in a very practical way. The phone folds from the two sides of the main smartphone’s screen and it closes in the middle of the rear side of the device. In the video, we can clearly notice a camera icon on the screen, but we can not see any camera on the phone. Instead, there is a power key and a USB Type-C port to charge the battery.

Learn more about Xiaomi’s foldable design by clicking here.

Tri-folding by TCL

TCL showcased a lot of foldable smartphone prototypes this year. But the last one which surprised us is the foldable phone we wrote about yesterday. It sports a tri-folding display with two hinges: the first one folds in while the second one folds out, so it is able to fold in a zig zag manner in order to take less space. When unfolded, the TCL prototype has a total diagonal of 10 inches making it a real tablet-sized device. The phone even sports a quad camera setup on the rear side. Unfortunately, when it is folded, the device is very thick, but it is compact. We still do not know when this device will be announced.

Learn more about TCL’s foldable design by clicking here.

Foldable flip phone by Motorola

Motorola is expected to announce its first foldable smartphone on November 13, at least from what an official teaser video suggests. It will be a revival of the iconic RAZR line-up which made the fortune of the company in the feature phones age. And, just like the original RAZR series, the new foldable smartphone will have a clamshell form factor. But there will obviously be a difference: the display will be foldable just like the phone. Given that it will be a flip phone, probably you already imagined that it will fold vertically. According to rumors, the Motorola RAZR smartphone will sport a 6.2-inch flexible OLED display with a resolution of 876 x 2142 pixels. The phone will also come with an external display which will allow users to check notifications without unfolding the phone. The foldable display should be notched in order to include a front camera for selfies. Despite its foldable design, the Motorola RAZR is not expected to be a flagship: instead, it should be a mid-ranger equipped with a Snapdragon 710 chipset paired with 4 or 6 GB of RAM and 64 or 128 GB of internal storage depending on the chosen configuration.

Learn more about Motorola’s foldable design by clicking here.

Foldable laptop by Lenovo

Instead of a smartphone, Lenovo is developing a foldable PC. It is a laptop that folds inwards with a huge 13.3-inch display and, obviously, Microsoft Windows as the operating system. The prototype belongs to the ThinkPad X1 series and Lenovo should launch it in the market in 2020 when it will be completely ready and safe.

Learn more about Lenovo’s foldable design by clicking here.

World’s first foldable phone by Royole

Last but not least, the world’s first foldable phone. A lot of people expected Samsung to release the first foldable device, but Royole beat the Korean giant and announced the FlexPai before the Korean giant. Just like the Huawei Mate X, the Royole FlexPai is another device with a flexible display placed externally which folds outwards. It is available in the global market and it is powered by the Snapdragon 855 chipset. Its display has a 7.8-inch diagonal when unfolded.

Learn more about Royole’s foldable design by clicking here.

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Chinese smartphone makers are on the spree of launching unique smartphones with innovative design. Xiaomi, a China-based smartphone maker has patented a smartphone design that packs a solar panel on the phone’s back.

In July last year, Xiaomi Mobile Software had filed a patent application with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Office) for a smartphone having a solar cell module. The patent included a few sketches of the phone’s design, giving us a look at what we should expect if it ever makes it to the market.

The sketch shows that the smartphone comes with a no-notch display but it’s not clear where the front-facing camera is placed. There’s also no indication of the pop-up module for the front camera. The company could be opting for an in-display camera technology for this one, the technology for which has already been showcased by Xiaomi.

On the backside, the smartphone comes with a dual-camera module with the camera sensors placed vertically and having an LED flash in between both the sensors. There’s no fingerprint sensor on the back panel, confirming the in-display fingerprint sensor module.

The solar panel is the most noticeable part of the phone, which covers the majority of the phone’s back panel. Surprisingly, the solar panel is thinner than the camera module. Through this integration, it will be possible to charge through the phone via solar energy.

There are a few other companies that have explored the idea of a solar-powered smartphone and now Xiaomi is also working towards the same. However, there’s no information available regarding the phone’s launch. While the patent has been granted, this does not guarantee that the company will actually produce the phone and bring it to the market. It just means that the company is exploring the idea and is working towards it.

(Source)

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Smartphone makers are experimenting with a unique design to make their devices stand out of the crowd and also to showcase their engineering capabilities. In this on-going trend, Lenovo has reportedly been granted two new patents.

The newly granted patents are for different kinds of sliding mechanism for smartphone design that when slides, reveals the front-facing camera module. The company has provided a few sketches with the patent application filed with the CNIPA (Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration).

In the sketches, the seemingly inferior model has only a dual-camera setup on the back and a single-camera selfie setup that’s revealed only when the phone is in the slid position. The second phone has a similar design in terms of appearance but has a couple more cameras. There are dual selfie cameras and a triple camera array around back.

Interestingly, the round camera bump design seems to be clearly borrowed from Motorola. The sketched device looks a lot like a Moto Z with a full-screen display and a form-factor of a slider phone.

Apart from this, nothing much is known about smartphones in terms of specifications and features. Reports indicate that the devices could be the successor of the Lenovo Z5 Pro and Z5 Pro GT, both of which are slider phones with an in-display fingerprint sensor.

As said, many smartphone makers are coming up with slider smartphones for housing the camera sensors, which allows them to offer a higher screen-to-body ratio. The recently launched premium smartphones with such design include Samsung Galaxy A80 and Asus Zenfone 6. It seems like having a mechanical part in a smartphone is a trend nowadays.

(Source)

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The era of innovative smartphone designs have started and the most ambitious commercially available design is the foldable smartphone design. However, smartphone makers are still experimenting with other design types.

In a similar move, South Korean tech giant Samsung has been granted a new patent for a smartphone design with three display stacked on top of each other. The patent was filed by the company in August last year and was granted in March earlier this year.

Thanks to the renders made by Letsgodigital, we can see three parts each featuring a display. There’s a middle unit at the bottom and a metal rod that holds the three parts together. From the patent images, it seems that the user will be able to scroll left or right through parts independently of each other, which gives them a range of monitors only. The design seems quite unique and the enclosure also seems remarkably thin.

The company has included 10 patent sketches which show that the bottom unit is completely round-shaped. The phone also expands as a RAL-range while some colors range from the paint industry.

Also, there are no visible buttons or camera sensors on the smartphone apart from the receiver. Further, the back panel of the device is also completely smooth. It cannot be said with certainty if the company will go ahead with the production of this as the patent for this from Samsung Display is still pending.

Meanwhile, the South Korean giant is gearing up to launch the Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphone. The company has confirmed that it has fixed the issues and has taken measures to ensure the phone’s durability. The phone is set to go on sale in September this year but no specific date has been revealed yet.

(Source)

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It’s already known that the Huawei is gearing up to launch its flagship smartphone series — Huawei Mate 30 in the coming months. Now, a report has surfaced online which sheds light on the upcoming smartphone’s design.

The report coming from the company’s supply chain suggests that the phone will come with a unibody design with no gap for the metal frame so that the phone can be made without any kind of notch or holes. It says that the company believes this kind of design to be the future of the smartphone design.

Earlier this year, another Chinese brand Vivo had introduced a concept phone with such glass unibody design. So, it’s quite possible that Huawei is preparing a smartphone with a glass unibody design.

If there are no holes in the phone, then the issue arises about the SIM card slot on the device. Well, the report says that the company will adopt the eSIM technology instead of the traditional SIM card.

For regular buttons such as power button and the volume rocker keys, it is said that the company will take the pressure-sensitive approach. For charging, the phone will have to be dependent on wireless charging.

However, take this information with a pinch of salt and there’s hardly any evidence pointing towards Mate 30 using the glass unibody design. While such a design for a smartphone is possible for the near future, we don’t expect the Huawei Mate 30 to take such an extreme approach of opting for a no-holes design.

(Via)

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