Samsung shows off futuristic foldable smartphone designs via a series of illustrations

Samsung has made it abundantly clear that it has put all of its eggs in the foldable smartphone basket. With the Galaxy Z Fold 3 rumoured to replace the Galaxy Note 21 outright, it is clear that Samsung is banking on the somewhat niche product line to become mainstream. Sammobile has stumbled upon some new sketches that show us how Samsung's foldables may look in the future.

Oppo just bedazzled the world with its first-ever rollable smartphone- the Oppo X 2021. Rollable OLED screens are nothing new, with Samsung's arch-nemesis LG having grappled with the concept for quite some time. However, Samsung's idea of a rollable smartphone is quite unlike Oppo's. It envisions an OLED panel that rolls around a central shaft, which can then be unravelled like a scroll. The concept looks nice on paper, but it is unlikely that we will ever see it as an actual product anytime soon. Given the complexities associated with cramming key smartphone components in one cylinder, it'll be several years before anything resembling this is released.

Samsung's second idea of a foldable smartphone looks more realistic. It builds upon the existing foldable design by adding more folds to the equation. Instead of two screens that fold in half, there are now four of them that can be unfolded to form one giant tablet, like a map. This design could very well hit the shelves in the next decade or so, perhaps even earlier.

It is far too early to comment on the state of foldable smartphones, primarily because there are so few of them on the market. Furthermore, the prohibitively high cost associated with manufacturing such devices drives them well beyond the reach of average consumers. Samsung seems to be the only company interested in bringing foldable technology to the mainstream. If it manages to pull it off, designs like the ones shown above could very well manifest themselves into actual products.

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