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Samsung has been touting their next big display advancement for quite a while now. It has nothing to do with pixel densities or resolution and everything to do with flexibility. Now a new report out of Korea says the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 could be the first device to feature such a flexible AMOLED display (known as YOUM), but it isn’t quite what you think.
We’re not at the point where we will have a smartphone with a foldable screen. Rather, the flexibility will allow the screen to be fitted into a traditional smartphone built with virtually unbreakable results. It’s referred to as UBP, or unbreakable plane. The one deployed in the Note 3 would measure 5.9 inches and run at full HD resolution.
Samsung is expected to start mass producing such displays in the lead up to the Note 3’s rumored Holiday 2013 launch. With manufacturing kinks worked out and a little more refinement, it could mean more fantastic flexible designs could appear some time in 2014. For an idea of what Samsung envisions early on, check out some of these concepts from CES 2013.
[via BriefMobile]
But that will make it feel more like a old style soft plastic touch screen or will it still control with capacitive touch? And no glass above it at all?
I would assume they’ll put some sort of backing behind it.
I doubt you can see or feel the difference between those panels.
I also wonder if it bends under finger press. If does – no go for me, I tend to get too press-happy when playing games.
Was that a tech groupie or a Samsung groupie?
It is already broken….it has TouchWiz on it.
Ahhh, well done. Well done.
Obviously you haven’t tried TouchWiz on the Note 2.
That’s probably why he feels its broken because it really is. We want a GSIV stock!!!
Why don’t we have the Nexus 4 with stock Android and the S4 with TouchWiz?
I think we have enough with iPhone users…
Amen…doubt I’ll ever go CM on this puppy.
I admit it’s not that bad on the Note 2 with a different launcher, but the hands on videos of the S4 looked horrendous UI wise. It’s hard to go AOSP and loose the multi window on the Note 2.
Having owned a Note 2 since launch week where I live, I can attest that CM 10 is a superior experience on the Note 2 over Touchwiz or “Nature UX”. The phone actually feels substantially faster with CM. It is possible to lag the Note 2 if you tried hard.
Plus there is some S-Pen support now available on the CM mod. Most of the other apps like S-Note can be replaced by better ones on the Play Store. The only thing you really miss is multiwindow (you can download Floating Browser as a replacement to the popup browser). Overall imo, it’s worth it.
I guess I should clarify that I don’t disagree with you. I actually do an AOSP ROM called MMuzzyROM for 6 Nexus devices. My response was that no, TouchWiz is not broken. It actually enhances the experience for the Note 2 hardware… but I’d rather have AOSP when I have a choice.
The reason why I say that the performance is substantially worse is because I have been reading the XDA and Team Hacksung posts. Under the hood, there are quite a few things that Samsung has broken or has in many cases, used poor coding practices.
For example, Google’s Project Butter is broken underneath the hood through Touchwiz and there are many security bugs that Samsung has often not responded too, or has been exceedingly slow to fix (and in some cases acknowledge).
Good points, Chris. The biggest reason I stay on TW with my Note 2 is bluetooth works better. I really wish we didn’t regress with things like metadata in 4.2.x. The new BT stack was all about licensing and not about better usability.
Bluetooth is less than ideal on the latest nightly. In your position, I’d agree if that’s an important feature to you.
With CM Mod at the moment, you do lose a few features, but you also gain a lot. Battery life is better I find, although there are some Touchwiz roms with really good battery life too.
You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. TouchWiz may not be the most beautiful or intuitive UI but it certainly offers the smoothest and most feature rich experience, certainly much better than cyanogenmod on the Note II or any other device I’ve tested.
“Smooth” and “feature rich” are both pretty subjective. As someone who got burned by Samsung’s stock 2.3 GB 1st time I got this i9100g I can tell you that w/ a straight face. It’s useless to talk about Tw being if not the best Android OEM skin+UX (the “X” here are the problematic part) if I have to suffer USB/MTP on/off performance, higher than normal phone operating temps, random reboots and sleep of death.
Issues that were resolved once and for all when I went the CM route.
You may argue that those aren’t happening right now for current gen Tw running models; S III + N II I won’t deny that, I see that on my wife’s S III but features like Smart Rotation or Smart Stay? It doesn’t scr rotate that much faster considering that it’s an Exynos 4412 aka Exynos 4 Quad compared to my clunky old TI OMAP 4430 loyal trooper here and Smart Stay from my extensive use of it are downright useless. Might as well just set scr off after 30 secs. I just flashed hers the leaked official 4.2.1 fw based Android Revolution HD 30.5 called that a day….And if that doesn’t work:-
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_admits_to_galaxy_s_iii_sudden_death_issue_fix_is_on_the_way-news-5278.php
…not even a near flawless UX can fix that. It’s already fixed yes but key debate here is that Samsung seems bent on just focusing on TouchWiz and adding gimmicks at the expense of some pretty scary end user trade-off risks;- device breaking bugs, wasted half efforts on fixes which leads to a very very slow Android progressions’ firmware updates, spread on a breadth of best selling portfolio.
https://plus.google.com/101093310520661581786/posts/cdPnNjLAb4F
I’m not anti Tw. I’m just saying that if Samsung are serious about bringing a market leading UX, then do it TOTALLY rather than just out front and aesthetics driven. Do it all the way down to the underlying base and don’t bloat it up to a point it becomes the best excuse towards NOT giving future Android revs to stock/official fw users on time.
/S II I9100g/Android 4.2.2/CyanogenMod 10.1 nightlies user
Have you seen what goes on under the hood in the the Touchwiz mods? Read some of the links that The Calm Critic has posted – hint: they’re not the only things that Samsung has managed to break with Touchwiz.
It’s possible, despite it’s hardware, to lag the Samsung Note 2 on Touchwiz. It’s harder to do so on CM 10 right now.
Battery life can be better on CM. Admittedly you can get very good battery life with custom Kernels and ROMs that are Touchwiz based, but subjectively, I do find that CM mod does outperform Touchwiz. I have yet to test benchmarks though.
Keep up the good work Sammy!
Well, no metal body… HTC will sell more phones than Samsung again…
when was this the case?
Not to mention the only reason the Evo outsold the OG Epic was Sprint’s “flagship” tag & marketing campaigns. OG Epic still going strong.
a scuff and a minute ding are very different from cracks and chips and gashes. I dropped my Evo’s without a case, tens of times. All i had was very minor imprints on the edges. It’s not a rugged phone but its far from fragile. Just because its not invincible, doesnt mean you have to downplay any effectiveness
Evo wasn’t metal though.
it wasn’t but it was made with better materials than other phones i have had (palm pre for example) and it definitely handled drops 10x better. That was all i was saying. sure you can say “all phones get hurt from drops” but build materials does 100% make a difference in how you phone looks after its first, second, or umpteenth drop without a case.
I was just saying that the Evo has nothing to do with the user’s comment you replied to because he’s talking about the metal casing on the One which is probably not as scuff resistant as the Evo.
My comment about the evo is about HTC’s history of solid build quality, so i have no reason to believe the One would be any less durable than other phones. Besides, i stand by my statement, scuffs and dings are still better than chips and cracks. I dropped my palm pre maybe 3 times, first time i got permanent white scratches on my black phone, 2nd time a chunk of plastic chipped off the device. 3rd time, the screen went black.
Dude! OMG. seriously love HTC and hope they pull back in the game but they have never come close to sammy
The finish on my plastic Note 2 isn’t as good as the finish on my metal phones. The chrome started chipping within two weeks and the plastic has lots of tiny scratches. My Droid X only had one minor flaw in the finish, from when it was accidentally thrown, the 9 months I had it and 11 months my wife had it.
Really? When did htc sell more phones than samsung? Last I checked, it was htc in the news that said their earnings have been going down for past 2 years. Please research just a bit before posting.
That was a sarcastic comment… because now the most important feature in a Android phone is the metal body.
my god is this old…
Big phone in a small size.
Oh this rumor again… It was said for the S III, Note II, S 4 and now Note III…
I like and use Samsung devices, but their product intros are so uncomfortable to watch :-/
“Unbreakable” is nice but what about “scratches”? Generally, you can only have one. A extremely hard surface that resists scratches (but is stiff) or a flexable surface that won’t break (but is easily scratched)
I’ll take unbreakable since we have yet to see unscractchable. Also I prefer using a screen protector to fight scratches, and adds no bulk, as opposed to a bulky case to keep the screen from breaking. That’s my opinion, others hate screen protectors but don’t mind bulky cases.
The sapphire glass rumors seem to address both. Might be just Apple’s propaganda though, to hype the iPhone 6 and justify another $100 price hike.
In this case get a screen protector
After they give it to my girlfriend and let her use it for a few days, then we’ll see if it’s unbreakable or not.
Unbreakable!! I am kind of excited for that :D but if they do say it’s going to be unbreakable… there are people out there will try to break it XD
lol “unbreakable”, be sure to read the fine print!
tempted to call bull. Great if it is coming this year though. Going to take more than a flexible display and an octa core cpu to get me to upgrade from my note 2
I just hope that the 5.9 is the screen size but the body size stay the same. I love the size of my note 2 and would not want it any bigger.
OH THIS IS GOING TOO BE SWEET. can’t wait. think now I WILL WAIT TILL OCT too buy the NOTE III with the latest greatest technology in screens. I will now SKIP THE XPERIA Z & GS IV & MOTOROLA X PHONE.
My next phone.
It’s unbreakable… until it breaks.
If true, I will take them up on their challenge.
“unbreakable” the way the Titanic was “unsinkable”? Oh ok….
More unbreakable the way a Kent comb is unbreakable vs regular cheap plastic combs.
Darn, I honestly thought the “it might be a LCD” rumor was cool.
Our screen is unbreakable!
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Note 3 Wins! FATALITY!
This would be amazing innovation at its finest thanks Samsung
Kleverson Royther They said its a prototype. No one says its being released for Note 3 haha though Samsung seems confident that they are utilising that Youm Display for Note 3 but not S4.
Heres hoping this time its being released in Note 3