Samsung appears to be looking to third-party companies for the OLED display on its upcoming Galaxy M41 budget phone. Specifically, the company may be looking to either TCL’s China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) or BOE. That’s based on recent reports stemming from China and unnamed industry insiders.
The insiders indicate that the company has already “decided” to go with CSOT display panels. But Samsung is also said to be considering the latter company’s offerings as well.
Why is Samsung opting to step away from its Display division on the Galaxy M41?
The decision by Samsung to step away from its own in-house screen production — Samsung Display — for the budget-friendly device is puzzling. But it isn’t entirely a mystery. The most likely scenario seems to be that Samsung is looking for ways to offer top-tier features, in the case that’s the inclusion of an OLED panel. But that it doesn’t want costs to go too high in the process.
By looking to Chinese display giants, the company is effectively exploring options to keep costs for itself down. That should, in turn, help it offer a better price on the affordable M-series device when it launches. And that still doesn’t necessarily mean that Samsung will finalize a deal and use CSOT or BOE display panels.
That’s because this isn’t the first time the company has reportedly looked to save a buck by going elsewhere for displays. Recent rumors, for instance, suggest that the company was exploring the use of BOE OLED panels for its next-generation flagship. That’s the Samsung Galaxy S21 series.
In that case, the company is reported to have been dissatisfied with the quality of those panels. The exact nature of the failure has not been reported. But the company is said to have tested BOE’s panels and they didn’t pass Samsung’s quality tests. So, if Samsung does decide not to use third-party panels, it wouldn’t be too surprising either. But this isn’t a flagship smartphone either, so it isn’t out of the question since any testing will likely be less demanding.
Is it the Galaxy M41 or M51?
Now, rumors about the Samsung Galaxy M41 — also tentatively reported as the Samsung Galaxy M51 — have been numerous. But details about the device in the lead-up to its eventual launch have been shifty at best.
As hinted above, there is some speculation that Samsung might opt for the Galaxy M51 branding instead of M41, just for starts. And the specs for the display panels in question are also not clear. Some reports have indicated the gadget will ship with a 6.5-inch flat Infinity-O display. That would make the panel 0.2-inches larger than the previous model.
That would, those rumors claim, be packed into a frame that measures 162.6 x 77.5 x 8.5mm. Or 9.5mm thick, with the cameras’ protrusion being accounted for. Reports suggest a capacitive fingerprint scanner to the right of the left-mounted vertical tri-camera array. A Snapdragon 720G or Snapdragon 662 chipset. 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is expected under the hood.
Benchmarks, conversely, have suggested a Snapdragon 675 and up to 8GB RAM.
Other reports suggest Samsung might utilize a 6.67-inch OLED display with an FHD+ resolution. With a 19.5:9 aspect ratio expected, that would equate to a resolution of around 2,340 by 1,080 pixels.