Samsung shows off its smartphone with foldable display

At Samsung’s Developer Conference earlier today, the company gave a short glimpse of its smartphone with foldable display.

Samsung’s folding phone will actually have three screens – a large display that will unfold the phone into a small tablet, and a smaller display which sits on the outside of the phone for use in one-handed operation. Samsung calls this smaller screen the “cover display,” and it definitely seems smaller than what you get on a modern, large-display smartphone. The idea is that since the “large” tablet display can only be used in the full-size mode, you’ll need this secondary display for more day-to-day smartphone functions.

The demo device was inside a “black box” to disguise the actual industrial design, but that suggests this phone is getting pretty close to being done (also, the bezels won’t be that large – it’s deliberate obfuscation). Samsung says production of Infinity folding panels should be ready in the coming months, suggesting the phone could launch in the early part of next year.

Meanwhile, Google has announced that Android will support foldable displays, so that applications can seamlessly shrink and expand based on the state of the foldable display.

I love the technology that makes all this possible, but I think it’ll take a few generations and iterating before these foldable displays truly become useful.