As Samsung’s Galaxy Fold series of foldable smartphones has clearly become the new lineup of devices for the brand, it’s not surprising that it will continue to advance and improve upon it over the new several years. Case in point, a patent detailing a Galaxy Z Series with a foldable panel that folds sideways.
The patent was unearthed by the Dutch rumour page, Let’s Go Digital, who found it submitted to the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) back in 2021. It envisions a Galaxy Z Fold smartphone with its foldable display technology wrapping around to the back of the phone like Huawei’s Mate X foldable smartphone. The catch to this foldable display? The foldable part of the display is built into the upper half of the phone and, when unfolded, forms an upside-down L-shape.
According to the patent, the intended point of this design is to enable, say, the user to bring up the calendar or cloud storage app on the side, while conducting a conference call on the phone. Through this implementation, the L-shaped display would sidestep the typical picture-in-picture (PIP) functionality and instead, constantly keep the user constantly engaged in said concall. Design-wise, the extended part of the display would use the same Ultra Thin Glass (UTG), found in the Z Flip3 and Z Fold3, along with a special hinge and three magnets to prevent the display from detaching from the device accidentally.
As with all patents, it is possible that such a device may never actually make it to the production line and, like most major tech giants, Samsung simply filed the patent to such a device to prevent its rivals from ever using such a concept. At least, not without paying them the necessary gratuity that comes as a prerequisite after filing such patents.
(Source: Let’s Go Digital)
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