LG announces Real Folding Windows, a cover for foldable displays that overcomes the limits of the ultra-thin glass used by Samsung: how it works and when it arrives
LG exited the smartphone world through the front door but re-entered through the back door. The Korean company announced at the beginning of April the divestiture of its smartphone division, thus closing a decades-long adventure in the production of cell phones first and then smart phones, but it has never thought of abandoning the sector.
LG in fact produces many of the components that end up on the products of other manufacturers, and among its most important business was and continues to be the one related to displays. It's a profitable sector in which LG excels, and one in which it has never stopped investing in research and development. And if the company hasn't been on the market long enough to develop its own foldable display, it has given enough thought to the evolution of these still relatively new devices and ended up thinking differently from Samsung, which on the Galaxy Z Fold3 and Z Flip3 uses glass so thin it resembles plastic.
The Real Folding Window by LG
The reason is simple: to be folded thousands of times without being damaged, a display of this type must be not very rigid and very flexible. Samsung used plastic on the first generation of Galaxy Z Fold, but the problems that arose with the first units sold put the company in trouble, which for the design of the second generation (and then also for the third) preferred to use glass just 30 micrometers thin.
LG has a different opinion. Why try to bend glass when you can use stronger plastic than that used on, say, the first Galaxy Z Fold? At LG's headquarters, where they have probably asked themselves the question, they have worked hard to develop their idea, succeeding however to give birth to Real Folding Window, a material for foldable displays presented in the last hours.
The company assures that through this technology it is possible to obtain a cover for foldable displays that would approach the resistance guaranteed by glass while maintaining the flexibility typical of plastic and a thickness limited to "few micrometers". LG didn't say how many, but assured that through Real Folding Window you can get a thinner layer than the one Samsung uses on Galaxy Z Fold3 and Z Flip3.
Main advantages and when it arrives
LG wanted to emphasize that with Real Folding Window you get a protective layer as hard as glass (a statement that, of course, will have to be verified) but flexible enough to avoid the onset of fractures or cracks on the surface, which sometimes customers of Samsung's ultra-thin glass foldables have had to deal with.
The other advantage that LG says it focused on quite a bit during development is Real Folding Window's low sensitivity to bending, which instead is sometimes visible on Samsung's devices especially against the light, despite the Seoul-based company having worked generation after generation to avoid it as much as possible.
The Real Folding Window will begin mass production in 2022 to appear on the first (non-LG-branded) products by 2023.