Samsung is already ready to go beyond the foldable concept we've known for just a few years: here is the first "multi-fold" smartphone ever
Never Settle, never settle, is the slogan of OnePlus, but come to think of it it fits like a glove on many other rival companies, especially those like Samsung that never stop investing in research and development, despite already occupying a dominant position in certain segments of technology.
Such as that of foldable products, in which Samsung essentially dominates unchallenged. A rival there was, and even fearsome, but it was "done away" by the US ban: it was Huawei, which together with Samsung had started first in the development of foldable. Together in 2017 they showed at the Mobile World Congress the first foldable prototypes, and together two years later they brought to market their respective foldables in series. Huawei was stopped almost immediately by trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. and the foldable "flame" was slowly forced to die out due to force majeure, Samsung on the other hand was able to continue on its path and recently unveiled the third generation of foldables consisting of Galaxy Z Fold3 and Z Flip3.
The fascination of the multi-fold smartphone
But Samsung, in fact, is not a company that likes to settle, and despite the fact that on the foldable is well ahead of the competition, at the International Meeting for Information Displays (IMID 2021) in Korea showed an interesting prototype. It is a "multi-fold" smartphone, that is, able to overcome the single-fold concept of Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip.
Samsung would then be working on a kind of accordion folding smartphone, with the ability to fold the display twice. The scenario is interesting because by doing so, at the cost of a greater thickness when closed, you get a product with a display that can become much larger if necessary. So new opportunities arise and multitasking can be much more advanced as you could put two applications side by side, being able to perform two different tasks at the same time.
Like many other experimental and early development products, IMID 2021's multi-folding smartphone prototype is displayed inside a case, making it impossible for patrons to interact with it: no one could touch it with their hands, to see how it was really made.
It can be deduced that there is therefore still a lot of work to be done to come to a product that can be mass-produced to withstand the stresses of everyday life, but the idea is already there and probably at Samsung headquarters are working with the aim of bringing as soon as possible on the market this evolution of the concept of a foldable smartphone.
The characteristics of the prototype
It is not even said that the possible smartphone series has the same features as the one exhibited at IMID 2021, which can boast a 7.2-inch OLED display in which it could be drowned one or more selfie cameras, as already seen on Galaxy Z Fold3.
Needless to specify that there is no news about the possible start of marketing: it is still early, perhaps it will take years. But the future is already here. and it is clear that Samsung intends to remain the market leader by focusing everything on the foldable.