OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 69

Samsung announced the unpacked 2014 episode 1 event, to take place on February 24th at the Convention center in Barcelona (during the Mobile World Congress). The invitation clearly says UNPACKED 5, which means Samsung is very likely to unveil their new flagship phone, the Galaxy S5.

Just a few days ago Samsung Display confirmed it is developing a 5.2" WQHD (2560x1440, 560 PPI) AMOLED display, and it's highly likely that the GS5 will adopt this display. It's also likely that following the GS5, Samsung will release more variants (for example an "active" model, a "zoom" model, etc). These may adopt different displays, perhaps LCD ones.

In August 2013, DisplaySearch said that AMOLED technology is expected to take the revenue lead in the mobile phone display market. The company now released their new worldwide FPD shipment forecasts, and they say that actually LTPS LCD had the largest revenue share in 2013 (37%) followed closely by AMOLED (35%).

Interestingly, the company sees LTPS LCDs to grow in popularity as requirements for higher resolution and longer battery life will drive the growth. Those LTPS LCDs will grab 51% of the market by 2020. It's one of the first time I see a market research saying that AMOLED mobile phone displays wil stop growing in the future - and even decline in market share.

Even though earlier rumors suggested Samsung will adopt an LCD for the upcoming GS5 phone, it was later reported that the GS5 will actually adopt a 5.2" WQHD (2560 x 1440, 560 PPI) AMOLED panel. Today, at a display technology roadmap seminar, Samsung confirmed that indeed they are developing a QHD AMOLED panel.

Samsung will not stop at 560 PPI. The company is actually planning an even higher density panel - a UHD panel that will feature 860 PPI. It will be very hard to justify such a high density on a mobile device, but I guess it's a marketing race that is hard to stop. At any case, it seems that Samsung will be adopting the Diamond Pixel architecture for those high resolution displays.

LG Electronics announced that next month it will launch the G Flex phone in more than 20 European countries, including the UK, Germany, France and Italy. Currently the phone has been available in Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, and it's also coming to the US for AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

LGE says that they are confident in the global marketplace for a curved premium smartphone. Of course it's going to be very expensive and so will remain a niche product. According to some reports 13,000 G Flex phones were shipped (mostly in Korea obviously).

Samsung announced that they shipped over 10 million Galaxy Note smartphones in South Korea alone since launching the original Galaxy Note in 2011. A month ago the company announced that they shipped over 10 million Note 3 smartphones globally in little over 2 months, and they also shipped over 38 million Galaxy Note and Note 2 smartphones globally since launching the original Galaxy Note in 2011

All of Samsung's Galaxy Note models use large HD Super AMOLED displays. The original Note had a 5.3" 1280x800 OLED, the Note 2 had a 5.5" OLED display (1280x720, non-Pentile) and the latest Note 3 sports a 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI, PenTile).

According to a report from Korea, LG sold over 13,000 G Flex smartphones in Korea. LG wants to lead the flexible OLED smartphone market, and is now launching this phone in the US and in Europe.

If you're thinking of buying this phone, know that some consumers are complaining about "bumps" in the display. LG acknowledges this issue, saying that excessive or frequent force that flattens the device may produce such bumps indeed. According to LG it does not effect the performance and quality of the phone, and the bumps will disappear over time and immediately disappears after pressing the problematic spot on the glass cover.

LG's G Flex is finally coming to the US. Sprint will ship the flexible OLED smartphone on January 31st (it will be available in retail stores on February 7th). You can now pre-order the G Flex for $300 (with a two-year contract).

The G Flex has a 6" 720p RGB flexible OLED display made by LG Display that is curved from top to bottom (unlike Samsung's Galaxy Round which is curved from left to right). Other features include a 2.3Ghz Snapdragon S800 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory, a 13MP camera, NFC, Android 4.2.2 and a 3500mAh non-removable battery (LG Chem's curved battery). The G Flex has two rear-mounted buttons and a "self-healing" back (that will heal scratches quickly).

As we get closer to Samsung's Galaxy S5 flagship launch (which will probably take place at around March), the rumors keep flowing. Only a week ago we posted that a Chinese site claims that the GS5 will sport a 5.25" WQHD (560 PPI) LCD (made by Sharp), but this time the Samsung-focused blog SamMobile says that the upcoming phone will use an AMOLED. Indeed it will sport a WQHD resolution and the size will be around 5.25".

SamMobile also confirms that the S5 will come in two models, a plastic one and a premium one made from metal. Other features include a 16mp camera (which may or may now feature hardware optical image stabilization), an Exynos 6 eight-core CPU (or a Snapdragon 805 in some markets) and Android 4.4 (KitKat).

UK mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is now offering LG's G Flex for pre-order. There are several plans available (on both O2 and EE), but the best value one is suggested at £79 ($129) up front and a £52 ($85) monthly cost (the 24-month contract includes unlimited talks, SMS messages and 5GB data).

If you order before March 31st, you'll also get a chance to win an LG 55EA9800 55" curved OLED TV.

According to ETNews, during CES Samsung Display has been privately showing a new foldable display prototype. SDC continues to develop their foldable OLEDs, and they are still only track to release the first foldable mobile phone in 2015.

SDC Foldable OLED concept, 2013

According to the report, the prototype panel was 5.68" in size, it uses a polyimide (plastic) substrate and it includes a touch panel. The touch panel uses metal-mesh electrodes instead of ITO (which is brittle and cannot be used in foldable displays).