We have known for a while now that Samsung is working on a foldable smartphone, the device that the rumor mill refers to as the Galaxy X, and recent reports suggest that the company may launch it at the Mobile World Congress next year. The company was expected to begin production of the foldable display panels later this year and a new report out of South Korea suggests that the company will begin trial production of its foldable OLED panels for the Galaxy X this summer.
The report also details that the folding mechanism for the Galaxy X is yet to be locked down. The patents that have emerged so far have detailed a device that folds in half but if that's the case, users will have to unfold the device for even minor tasks such as checking the time. It's thus claimed that the Galaxy X display may only fold two-thirds of the way to leave the top part exposed for information such as the time, battery percentage, notifications and more.
Galaxy X display
Samsung is reportedly going to build a pilot production line for its foldable OLED display in South Korea over the summer. It will then sort out any issues that come up on the pilot line before starting full-scale production of the foldable panel by the end of this year. The initial production capacity may be 100,000 units with Samsung aiming to produce one million units of the foldable OLED display by next year.
The panel size is said to be 7-inches when folded out. The device itself may be inward-folding with the display only folding two-thirds of the way up so that users don't have to unfold the device whenever they want to check the screen. This may also eliminate the need to unfold the display every single time the user wants to pick up an incoming call.
Samsung is tightlipped on the details about its foldable smartphone so there has been no confirmation from the company about any of this so far. We can surely expect to hear more reports and rumors about the Galaxy X in the months to come.
