Samsung may have just teased its rollable phone

Samsung’s Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was spotted with an unreleased phone with an unusual form factor during his recent visit to the company’s research and development center in Seoul, South Korea. The handset looks too thin to be a foldable device, and this has fueled speculations that it’s a stretchable handset.

The company has long been rumored to be working on a rollable smartphone. Patents filed by the company also indicate that a stretchable device is on the cards.

It is believed that Samsung privately demoed a slide-out smartphone during CES 2020 and it intends to release a commercial version next year.

The picture in which Lee is presumably holding a prototype unit was officially released by Samsung and it appears to be a teaser of sorts. LG has already suggested that it’s working on an expandable handset and TCL has also showcased a working prototype of its rollable smartphone. It looks like Samsung is eager to let the world know that it’s rollable phone is not far behind in development.

The photograph doesn’t really tell us anything about Samsung’s rollable phone, but if previous reports are to go by, it will have a flexible panel made of plastic, allowing it to expand from a 6-inch phone to an 8-inch tablet.

The word on the interwebs is that rollable panels will not be prone to creasing like foldable screens are and LG says that “stretchable displays are considered to be the ideal next-generation technology because they can shift in ‘free form’.”

It goes without saying that expandable phones will likely also have their own set of challenges, and we hope that Samsung resists the temptation of releasing a half-baked product in a bid to beat rivals to the punch.