Several reports from Korea suggests that LG Electronics is getting ready to announce their first phone that uses a flexible plastic-based curved OLED panel. Both reports say the new phone will sport a large 6" panel and it will be announced soon - within days or in November at the latest.
One thing the two sources do not agree upon is the name. CNet says it will be called the G Flex while ZDnet Korea claims it will be called the LG G Z or Z1. CNet says that they obtained the sketch shown above the shows how the new phone will look like.
Flexible AMOLED prototype, LG Display
CNet's sketch shows a curved phone (somewhat similar to Google's old Nexus S phone with its curved glass) - and it seems that the display is not wrapped around the device like in Samsung's prototypes shown in CES 2013 (see photo below). This is certainly not the most exciting flexible OLED design we've seen.
Flexible AMOLED prototype, LG Display
Earlier reports suggested that LG will indeed start flexible OLED mass production in November 2013. LG Display has a flexible OLED 4.5-Gen pilot line that has a capacity of 12,000 monthly sheets. At 100% yield this is less than 500,000 5" panels a month, and yields will undoubtedly be lower than 100%.
Last week we heard reports (later confirmed by some Samsung officials) that Samsung will announce a new premium-edition Galaxy Note 3 phone on October 25 - with a YOUM display. Samsung capacity will also be low (even though it is a bit higher than LG's).
Samsung flexible OLED phone prototype
It is also rumored that Apple will opt for a flexible OLED for its upcoming smart watch. This will be a smaller panel (around 1.4" in size). It seems clear that neither Samsung nor LG will be able to supply flexible OLEDs to both Apple's watch and their in-house smartphones.
Comments
theyre very durable. Video up on youtube where you can hit it with a rubber mallet without any damage. more energy efficient too, making battery life longer.
Maybe you can put it in your back pants pocket. Seriously, what means "unveil"? that they are working on a project phone with flexible display which should be launched within the next 3 years if (like for OLED TV) no problem of yield or reliability occur? pfff... Or it would be very expensive phone available in preorder only in very low quantity in Asia and only after care validation of your request by the marketing team?
What's the curved display got to do with durability?
Sure, in principle a plastic display may be more durable then a glass encased one, but that is true no matter whether it is curved or flat.
Btw: If I hit that curved thing with a mallet it will break in two. Maybe the OLED display could still work in principle, but if the rest of the thing won't work that's not going to help a whole lot.
I agree. Either truly flexible (rollable, foldable, or twistable) or nothing. That's the challenge facing flexible electronics, especially display.
I think the bottleneck for a truly flexible cell phone is not display, but batteries.
Honest question: Why would I want a curved phone as opposed to a flat one?
I certainly see the potential in flexible electronics, but a fixed, curved phone like the one in the drawings? To me that makes even less sense than the curved TVs.