Samsung: bendable smartphones are ‘right around the corner’

At the Rutberg’s Future: Mobile conference, Gregory Lee, President & CEO of Samsung Electronic North American, revealed that smartphones with bendable displays are “right around the corner.” While it may sound like Samsung is gearing up for a bendable of flexible smartphone for later this year, we suspect he’s referring to the upcoming launch of the Samsung Galaxy X which will likely make its debut at Mobile World Congress in 2017. He also added that Samsung has been playing around with the technology for 10 years, but production costs have been the reason why no devices with bendable displays have hit the market yet. 

Lee’s comments came after Lenovo showed off two foldable smartphone concepts at Lenovo Tech World 2016. One of the concept devices is an elongated smartphone which can wrap around a user’s wrist while the other features a tablet-sized display which folds in half to be used as a smartphone. We’ve seen similar devices in concept videos from Samsung in the past, but the company’s flexible/bendable display technology has never been shown off is a working prototype.

Samsung will likely beat Lenovo to market with a bendable smartphone, but we wouldn’t be surprised if more than one company introduces a bendable smartphone or tablet in 2017.