A new patent from Samsung illustrates where the company could go with its future foldable smartphones.
Source: Let’s Go Digital
Samsung has become in a few years the benchmark of foldable smartphones with the Galaxy Z Fold and the Galaxy Z Flip. However, the brand must prepare for competition from China, notably with the Oppo Find N, but also the Huawei P50 Pocket.
A new patent unearthed by LetsGoDigital shows what Samsung can imagine for the future of foldable smartphones.
Two folds for a more complex design
The patent shows schematics of a Samsung smartphone capable of tripling. Once fully unfolded, the device would take the form of a Galaxy Z Fold to which we would have added an additional screen portion. Folded, it would take the width of a more classic smartphone. The design of a foldable smartphone is already a feat, so the ability to double fold the device seems hard to imagine at the moment.
This poses a lot of design problems that Samsung is going to have to solve if the brand wants to market this product. For example, when folded in half, a Galaxy Z Fold 3 is rather thick in the hand. With a double fold, if we keep the same thickness for each part, the new smartphone would be too thick in hand when folded. Samsung must therefore refine the whole while keeping the expected strength once the device is unfolded in tablet mode, not to mention the thickness necessary to integrate a high-performance SoC and its cooling.
We can see on the diagram how Samsung could distribute the components in the device with the fingerprint reader under one of the parts of the screen and several batteries in particular.
The project of a smartphone with two hinges was already mentioned at the beginning of the year 2021 by several media. Failing to give us a better idea of the possible release date of such a device, the publication of a patent makes us think that the project is still very much alive in the offices of Samsung. Remember that a patent illustrates the thinking of a brand’s engineers, but is never the guarantee of a future marketed product.
To follow us, we invite you to download our Android and iOS application. You will be able to read our articles, files, and watch our latest YouTube videos.