Samsung is preparing to launch a rollable screen phone
Money Today newspaper (Korea) quoted sources close to Samsung saying that the Korean technology company is ready to launch a roll-screen smartphone in the first half of 2028.
Although the time between now and then is still very long, the source confirms that Samsung sees rollable screen smartphones as a strategic product to create a difference in the market to attract users, in the context of today's smartphone market having become saturated with a series of products with similar designs.
The source also said that Samsung's smartphone will use flexible OLED technology screen researched and developed by Samsung Display.
The design of the rollable smartphone will include a flexible screen part hidden inside the body and slid out when the user needs to expand the display size. The operating mechanism of a rolling screen smartphone makes the product thinner than a folding phone, but the rolling screen technology must be good enough to operate for a long time.
Meanwhile, according to technology site Geeky Gadgets, Samsung's roll-screen smartphone will be called Galaxy Z Roll 5G. The product has a 6.5-inch screen similar to regular bar-shaped smartphones, but can be expanded to 12.4 inches thanks to the scrolling screen hidden inside the body.
The product will be equipped with Qualcomm's highest-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chip (chip expected to launch at the end of 2027), 16GB RAM and maximum storage of 2TB.
Galaxy Z Roll 5G has a 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera that supports 10x optical zoom, and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. The product has an 8,000 mAh battery, comes with 65W charging capacity.
All information about Samsung's rolling screen smartphone is still at the rumor level. However, this rumor is completely well-founded when last May, Samsung filed a patent on a rolling phone called Galaxy Z Roll.
The image in the patent shows that the product can expand the screen thanks to a rolling mechanism, the cameras on the back are placed vertically, with a cutout in the frame to fit the camera cluster tightly when the screen is collapsed.
In fact, Samsung has repeatedly demonstrated ideas and prototypes of rolling screen smartphones developed by the company.
For example, at the CES 2022 technology exhibition, Samsung introduced a rolling screen smartphone prototype called Flex Slideable. The device has the same exterior design as a regular smartphone, but when you press the button, the right-hand side of the screen will slide out to expand the display size, similar to expanding a roll of paper.
Up to now, Flex Slideable is still just a prototype and idea product, unable to become a real commercial product.
In addition to Samsung, a number of other smartphone companies such as TCL, Oppo, Xiaomi... have also introduced rolling screen smartphone prototypes, but so far no products have been commercialized.
According to the technology world, the most difficult thing when developing a rollable smartphone is the quality of the screen, as the screen must be soft enough to be rolled up, but must still ensure durability for continuous use for a long time.
It is likely that Samsung has found a solution to increase the durability of flexible screens, helping turn roll-screen smartphones into a commercial product for sale to the market.