What will the smartphone industry of the future look like? No one can be certain about that, but it does seem clear that phone makers are keen to push forward with bendable and fully foldable displays. We’ve already been enjoying the benefits of curved TVs for some time now and every so often, one of the major smartphone manufacturers files for a patent detailing something related to this emerging display technology. That’s what happened with Samsung earlier this week and that’s exactly what’s happened now with LG.
Namely, documentation relating to an LG patent describing a panel or a tablet that’s not only foldable but also completely transparent has surfaced. The device depicted in the only document render (which you can see below) folds precisely in half, kind of like a book. Basic audio and video controls are depicted on one of its sides though nothing suggests the other side meant for displaying multimedia content isn’t touch-sensitive, as well. It looks interesting but at the moment is more than likely just a concept LG wanted to patent and not likely to be something which hits the market anytime soon.
Then again, maybe LG will be one of those companies who surprises the market next year. The company actually did promise a bendable smartphone by 2017, so who knows. Although, Samsung were originally rumored to be releasing a foldable smartphone as early as 2015. On the other hand, an interesting report from a couple months back claimed that LG is getting ready to kickstart the production of its 6th generation plastic OLED panels in early 2017. The “plastic” part refers to their thin bases which are made out of the said synthetic material. If that’s the direction LG has decided to take with its foldable displays of the future, it probably did so because they’re cheaper to manufacture than bendable displays with bases made out of metal or flexible glass. In any case, we should know more soon as the South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer will certainly showcase any and all of its latest accomplishments over the next few months, and likely once CES returns to Las Vegas.