For the last couple of years we’ve seen phone displays get ever larger and larger. With the Galaxy Note line from Samsung we’ve had the boundary for device size pushed as far as we thought it go. The first phablet device out of Korea measured a massive 5.3″ and we all thought that was far too big but, sales of the device took off and led to a second version of Samsung’s massive phone that featured an even bigger display at 5.5″ display. Surely, Samsung couldn’t make an even larger Galaxy Note, could they?
The opposite is what we’re hearing out of Korea today as the Korea Times are suggesting that Samsung could well have the facilities to bring such a large display to the market in 2013. As part of it’s rumored restructuring the company is said to be cutting back on LCD production in order to better focus on OLED panel production. From the Korean Times:
“With money saved from LCD restructuring, the firm plans to spend more on OLED and flexible displays,” – from a Parts Supplier.
That might not be enough to suggest that Samsung are bringing such a large display to market but the Korea Times is pretty sure the manufacturer will have the facilities to do so in 2013. Super AMOLED displays are the display of choice in all of Samsung’s high-end products and it would be no surprise to see it used in Samsung’s next phablet device. At such a size though, it would be even more of a tough sell – especially when you can get a 7-inch tablet for as low as $199 – and would make little sense to bring such a large size bump to the already massive Note II. However, the Galaxy S IV is pegged to have a 5-inch display as standard and perhaps Samsung feel that they need to go one better to make sure the Note is big enough to be its own product, and not just a Galaxy S with pen input.
Another question that comes as a result of these rumors is what screen resolution is going to be packed into such a large display, we’d assume that it’d be at least 1080p in order to keep it line with the Droid DNA – and every other phone in 2013 – but at 6.3-inches it’d certainly lose some of that pixel density. It’s becoming pretty clear that Samsung want us to enjoy larger displays, the Galaxy S has been growing ever since its first launch in 2010 and the Note line gets almost as much attention from Samsung as the Galaxy S line.
We’re quite away way from this being launched though as Samsung typically announce their Note devices around the fall of each year, making this rumor a little bit of soothsaying more than anything. Nobody is sure of what to expect from the Note III – or the Galaxy S IV for that matter – but it looks like 2013 is going to be a very interesting year for mobile, indeed.
[Source: Korean Times via Phonearena]