Patent Reveals Possible Samsung Rollable Phone
Back in January a patent filed by Samsung seemingly revealed the design of the upcoming Galaxy Multi-Fold. Are we headed down that road again with a new patent revealing Samsung’s design for a rolling phone?
The Patent
A patent filed back in March of 2023 and approved on April 15th of this year reveals a possible design for a future Samsung phone. While the patent does not state that this phone has the ability to expand, the aspect ratio and presence of a seam on the edges as well as on the back is highly indicative of a rollable screen phone.
This theoretical device sports a much more squared aspect ratio than a standard phone when closed which would make one-handed use a breeze. Quickly checking notifications, music playback or firing off a text would be perfectly usable on a screen like this. The important feature would be the ability for the screen to expand with a rolling mechanism, much like Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6.
We’ve seen this sort of thing tried before, but never shipped in the phone world. Famously, LG was working on a rolling phone before shutting down their phone division. Their device folding horizontally though, rather than Samsung’s vertical design. Think of this as a Flip vs Fold distinction.
Image based on patent
One advantage to rolling the screen rather than folding is that despite the best efforts of several OEMs, we still have a crease on folding screens. With no fold, there should be no crease. Of course, the downside here is that you are using fragile ultra thin glass on the outside of your device full time. You can’t close it to prevent damage. Perhaps a more durable type of UTG could be developed for this use as the screen might not need to be bent quite as far.
One thing it’s very important to keep in mind when dealing with situations like this is that patents often don’t lead to a real world device and when they do, the often end up looking quite different than how they appeared in the patent. Another important aspect to this story is that this patent was filed two years ago. I believe that it’s highly unlikely that a device like this will arrive on store shelves anytime in the near future with Samsung clearly focusing on the Z Fold and Z Flip lines of devices.
Still, this is a form factor that I would be very interested in seeing attempted.