Samsung Promises Smartphone With Curved Display

Samsung has revealed its intention to introduce a smartphone with a curved display next month.

The development is sure to form part of the South Korean electronic giant’s plans for smartphones with flexible displays, and follows the arrival (earlier this month) of its futuristic Galaxy Gear smartwatch.

Curved display

Samsung revealed its plans for the introduction of the flexible display smartphone during a media event in Seoul, South Korea yesterday.

“We plan to introduce a smartphone with a curved display in South Korea in October,” Samsung’s mobile business head of strategic marketing D.J. Lee was quoted by Reuters as saying at the event to launch the Galaxy Note 3 smartphone. No other details were revealed about the upcoming device.

Curved and flexible displays have been in the pipeline for a while now. Samsung has already introduced a curved screen OLED TV. And in January this year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) it showed off a 5.5-inch flexible smartphone display. That flexible display smartphone featured a high-definition resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels.

Flexible displays do offer smartphone and device designers much greater freedom compared to the rigid screens commonly found in the highly competitive smartphone market. And Samsung has further indicated its interest in the flexible display arena when in August this year, it began a contest that offers cash prizes for the best ideas regarding possible uses of its flexible display technology.

Yet Samsung is likely to face stiff competition, as some of its rivals seem to have developed something of a head-start in this arena.

Nokia, in 2010, filed a patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office that described a flexible interface that could be folded end-to-end in a shape like a soup can, into more of a C-shaped cuff or bent in a classic tent shape.

And then in October 2011, Nokia also unveiled of a bendable concept phone, dubbed the Kinetic, which could be controlled by physical actions, such as squeezing the handset.

That said, Samsung already offered a smartphone (the Nexus S) that has a slightly contoured display, designed to make it more comfortable to hold.

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