OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 63

Rumors are starting to circulate regarding Apple's next phone, and of course, as always, some of the rumors suggest an OLED display. With Apple finally adopting an OLED display for the Watch product, will they really use an OLED display in the next iPhone?

So first of all, the current rumors say that Apple approached Foxconn with a request to develop OLED technologies so it will be ready to mass produce them for the iPhone 7. It is reported that Apple aims to use a 5-inch 400 PPI panel, and some suggest that Apple is interested to use a flexible OLED display in a curved design.

LG Display unveiled a new mobile phone prototype that uses a 6" plastic-OLED display that is curved on two sides. LG Display calls this panel an "Active Bending" OLED, and it's currently just a prototype panel.

The 6" panel features a disappointing 1280x720 resolution (LGD is already producing 5.5" FHD flexible OLEDs). It is only 0.7 mm thick and can reach a brightness of 300 nits.

Samsung usually launches their flagship Galaxy S phone at around March, and rumors are now starting to circulate about the upcoming GS6. Reports from Korea suggest that alongside the normal GS6, Samsung will also release a S6 Edge phone that will use a curved plastic-based flexible AMOLED display.

An early flexible phone prototype

Unlike the Note Edge, the S6 Edge will have curved edges on both sides of the phone. According to the Korean reports, Samsung is already showing prototypes privately at CES. It seems that the Korean company is very optimistic, and they hope to sell 10 million S6 Edge phones in 2015, and over 35 million regular GS6 phones.

LG finally officially announced their new curved OLED phone, the G Flex 2. This exciting new phone has a 5.5" Full-HD Flexible OLED on a plastic substrate, protected with a new glass cover developed by LG that is reportedly 20% stronger than the latest Gorilla Glass 3. The screen curves from top to bottom, with a curvature radius of 700 mm. The whole phone can be slightly bent.

The G Flex 2 has self-healing back coating, a Snapdragon 810 Octacore 2Ghz CPU, 2GB of RAM, LTE, 16/32 GB of storage, 13 MP camera, fast-charging battery and Android 5.0 Lollipop. The phone will be released in Korea by the end of January for $740, and AT&T will carry it in the US.

According to an interesting market report from ETNews, LG Eelctronics is developing a smartphone with a bendable display. This technology will be similar to the bendable OLED TV prototypes we've seen, so you could press a button to change the phone from a curved state to a flat state. LGE has reportedly filed for a US patent describing such a system.

LG G Flex

ETNews says that this phone will actually be released very soon, and will be called the G Flex 2. We heard reports before that the G Flex 2 will be launched next month at CES 2015. I'm a bit skeptical that this will be a bendbale phone, as it seems a bit too early for a bendbale phone, but I wouldn't mind a good surprise from LGE!

According to Android Authority, LG is aiming to launch a successor to the G Flex at CES 2015 (January 2015). According to the blog, the G Flex 2 will be a major upgrade with a higher-resolution plastic-based OLEDs and a smaller form factor. Reportedly it will be more flexible than the original G Flex.

This is interesting - earlier this month it was reported in an Israeli newspaper that LG Electronics is developing a mini-version of the curved G Flex phone. It will be great to see another flexible OLED phone from LG.

Samsung hosted an investors forum in NY a few days ago, and it is reported that much of Samsung's focus was on OLED technologies. As we already reported, Samsung Electronics announced that flexible OLED is one of its 3 areas of future growth (especially as they struggle to increase high-end mobile phone sales), and during the conference the company revealed some interesting information and prototypes.

Foldable OLED concept (2013)

So first up were two new foldable OLED prototypes - a 5.5" (WQXGA, 2048x1526, 464 PPI) panel that folds in half and a 10" tri-foldable AMOLED (Full-HD, 218 PPI).

DisplayMate published a new article focusing on display color accuracy. Testing the six leading mobile displays, DisplayMate tested which ones perform best in terms of color accuracy. While all displays performed very good, DisplayMate found the Galaxy Note 4 to be the winner in this test, achieving the best results in all tested categories.

Historically, people often complained that Samsung's OLED offer overly saturated colors and inaccurate images. It's great to see OLEDs overcome yet another perceived disadvantage and yet again prove that even at its infancy, OLEDs outperform LCDs in yet another aspect.

Several new reports today suggests that Samsung is accelerating its OLED development. First up is Samsung Electronics, which announced that flexible OLEDs is one of three businesses areas it will focus on for future growth (the other two businesses are fin-FET semiconductors and startup incubating).

Samsung Display, meanwhile, updated that they aim to launch a foldable OLED panel (that can be folded in half) by the end of 2015. This is not really news as it was stated back in 2013, but it's still good to hear they still aim to produce foldable displays next year. SDC also hints at a possible multi-edged smartphone that will succeed the Note Edge which uses a one-sided curved OLED.

Last week we reported that EverDisplay Optronics (EDO) started mass producing 5" 720p (293 PPI) AMOLED panels for mobile phones - and they already have their first customer, a Chinese handset maker (the first phone to use EDO's OLEDs will launch by the end of 2014).

EDO today updated us that the company is currently producing 600,000 5" panels a month at their 4.5-Gen LTPS fab. The fab is not running in full capacity yet (which is 15,000 monthly substrates) and EDO expects to increase production to a million 5" panels by the end of 2014.