Samsung Has a Bendy Phone of Its Own, Among Other Concepts

BARCELONA—If today’s slab-style phones are too boring for your tastes, Samsung Display has some concept devices that might excite you. The company showed off a number of potential ideas for future phones at Mobile World Congress, including those that have bending, flexing, and even rolling screens.

The first device we looked at is similar to Motorola’s Adaptive Display Concept. It is a long, bar-style phone that can bend in a semi circle. It bends far enough that it can be worn as a cuff around your wrist, though it doesn’t have the fancy magnetic bracelet to help support it as the Motorola does. The model we saw on hand barely worked, and the screen is segmented fairly heavily rather than smooth.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

Another device strongly resembles Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, but rather than fold in half like a book, it can fold in both directions. It’s hard to say what purpose the dual-directional folding might serve other than to make it possible to stand the device like a tent for screen sharging purposes.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

In a similar vein, the next device resembles the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and can bend in half at the waist so the screen is on both sides of the exterior rather than protected inside. Another concept shows a flip phone with a nearly edgeless screen. Rather than have a hard bezel at the top, the screen extends all the way to the top edge.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

Then there’s the tri-fold. This concept screen can fold up upon itself twice so that it can act like a phone as well as a much larger tablet-sized device.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

Last, Samsung Display had a sliding screen device. The device can extend one edge—and the screen—outward to change sizes and shapes. The device on display was already rather large and was able to extend its screen perhaps another three inches.

(Credit: Eric Zeman)

Samsung didn’t say if or when concepts such as these might come to fruiition, but the company has already brought five generations of folding phones to the market and it’s not unreasonable to assume that new and different devices are in store.