Reports about Samsung's first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy X, have been gathering steam over the past few weeks. It was reported that the South Korean smartphone giant would release the revolutionary device in the third quarter of this year. However, a new report from The Investor states that the launch is unlikely to happen this year.
Experts and insiders from Samsung Electronics as well as Samsung Display are skeptical over the release of the Galaxy X. Some of them reportedly said that the companies are still perfecting the foldable display technology, and hurrying the launch might take a toll on Samsung, which was recently hit hard by the Galaxy Note 7 battery fiasco.
An anonymos industry insider was quoted saying, “Samsung Display has conducted a range of projects for rollable and foldable displays at its lab since 2005. After almost a decade since the company first succeeded in folding a functioning display in 2008, the foldable display has not been commercialized yet, which means there are still many technical trade-offs to make and difficulties to overcome.”
DJ Koh, Samsung Mobile chief explained last year that the company would not release a foldable smartphone until it is sure of its “meaningful innovations and true convenience to users.” Even though Samsung fans and geeks have high expectations from the Galaxy X, there are still some technical difficulties such as durability and flexibility that should be solved.
Some more problems with the foldable smartphone is the inclusion of features like 3D Touch, fingerprint sensor embedded inside the display, and all these technologies working together seamlessly. “Demonstrating these display technologies for a one-time event is easy, but commercializing them is a totally different story,” the source said to The Investor.
One more problem associated with the device is that Samsung wants to phone to be 10mm thin, but the screen is 3mm thick, and a curved display would make it 6mm, leaving just 4mm for the battery and other components. This makes it harder for the device to be qualified as per the company's needs.
An official from the parts supplier brand for Apple and Samsung said that the launch of the latter's foldable smartphone has been delayed, and that it is pouring a lot of resources on the foldable smartphone, but even engineers are not sure about the practicality of the device.
