A number of rumors suggested that LG will introduce its foldable smartphone during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month, well, it seems like those rumors were not as accurate, at least according to Evan Blass aka @evleaks. Mr. Blass is a well-known tipster, and he says that it’s highly unlikely that LG will show off its foldable smartphone at CES, as Mr. Blass says, the likelihood of that happening “has plummeted”, which suggests that there were some plans in place, but they’ve changed recently. LG was probably planning to show off its foldable smartphone in January to counter Samsung, as Samsung already demoed its device during its developer’s conference, though Samsung hasn’t announced its offering either just yet.
Background: Samsung did demo its foldable smartphone a couple of weeks back, but its design was obstructed by a case, so we don’t really know what the phone will end up looking like. LG, on the other hand, did not show anything just yet, so we don’t really know what to expect out of the company. Some LG patents did surface, though, the latest one appeared quite recently, actually. That patent suggested that LG is exploring new phone designs, some GBA-like concepts, actually. Truth be said, the company’s upcoming phone probably won’t base itself on those patents, LG is actually expected to introduce something similar to what Samsung showed off during its developer’s conference, we’ll probably see a phone which has some sort of a hinge in the middle of it, indicating where the phone will fold. Now, in Samsung’s case, the phone actually doesn’t fold on the inside, but in the opposite direction, so when folded, the phone uses half of its main display, it is fully operational, but in a smaller form factor. It remains to be seen whether LG will go that very same route, or will the company make a phone which folds in a regular way, which means that a separate display will have to be located on the outside, so that the phone is operational when folded.
Impact: Foldable smartphones are coming, there’s no doubt about it, and units from Samsung and LG are not the only ones we’ll see in 2019. Both Huawei and OPPO had confirmed that they’re working on their very own foldable smartphones as well, units from Samsung, LG, and Huawei will for sure arrive in the first half of 2019, according to the info that is available at the moment, while OPPO’s unit may arrive in the first half as well, we don’t really have any info about that at the moment. Huawei’s foldable smartphone was originally scheduled for the second half of 2019, but it seems like the company opted to push up its release date in order to compete with the likes of Samsung and LG. It seems like at least one or two of these companies will show off its foldable offering during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, even though nothing has been confirmed just yet, we’ll just have to wait and see what will happen.