We all wait for the appearance of flexible smartphones. But is not premature?
In the theory, you can create a smartphone with a flexible display now. Such a device can be wrapped around the hand, as if it is some kind of gigantic fitness bracelet. Flexible screen is not a miracle of technology, but an ordinary reality. The company of samsung produces it in large quantities. She repeatedly installed such a display in their smart watches and smartphones, and you didn't even notice. Why? And when the flexible will not only be the screen, but also the case? Let's try to find out the answers to these questions.
Display with flexible properties
Surely you have seen in stores TVs with concave screens. And some of our readers have such a TV even bought. But even these people may not suspect that on the fact of the LCD display of such a device is flexible. That is, when approaching the conveyor, it has a familiar flat state. A strictly concave shape is given to him only due to the fact that the body of the TV and many internal components cannot be stuck at the request of the user.
Approximately the same story is observed with SAMSUNG portable gadgets. They also embed a flexible display. But it is fixed in one form, since nothing else leaves the battery and other components of the device. For example, a flexible amoled screen and a rigid body was equipped with Samsung Galaxy Round. You can be curved both the entire display (remember the first smart watches Gear S) and only its edges (like the version of flagship smartphones with an EDGE console).
Of course, other companies are engaged in experiments with flexible displays. At first, the appearance of electronic books on light, the screen of which could be rolled into the tube. Patents on such devices were drawn up in the first half of 2010. But if electronic paper can really roll, the other components of these properties did not teach these properties. And later, the bookriders were almost completely ousted by tablets and smartphones. They exist in a flexible form already at least in the form of concepts. In particular, in 2016, the public was shown Lenovo SmartphoneC-Plus and Lenovo Tablet Folio. They had some flexibility, for which the components within these gadgets were laid in a special way.
Similar gadgets showed some other companies - for example, LG and Huawei. However, before free sale, these devices did not reach. Why? But this is a more interesting question.
Hard restrictions
The problem lies in the fact that one flexible display, as they say, will not be fed. If you need to achieve the flexibility of the entire design of the smartphone, you should significantly change the case and almost all components. Yes, what is there to speak, even about the present protective glass in this case, you can forget. It is assumed that a special film from Kolon Industries will be used in flexible smartphones - there is no alternative to her yet. But it is completely incomprehensible whether it will protect the screen from keys and other sharp items.
Of course, the processor, memory, matrix and camera lens are all these elements of a modern smartphone cannot be flexible. But solid components can be placed at a high distance from each other so that there are airbags. It would be nice even to reduce the size of components many times, but it is not necessary to hope for this in the next decade. And if you place the components at a distance from each other at their current sizes, the dimensions of the smartphone are significantly increased. Or he will receive a smaller number of all kinds of chips. For example, a flexible smartphone can be deprived of an accelerometer, a navigation module and something else. Does he need it at all? Is this a big price for the ability to flex a smartphone?
But the biggest problem is that the durable battery can not be liquid. Lithium-ion technology implies a rigid structure. It is the battery that is the most important limitation. How to achieve its flexibility, but at the same time save high capacity? No one knows the answer to this question. All prototypes of flexible devices were equipped with a plurality of small batteries separated on each other for some distance. But this implementation reduces the total capacity to a minimum. And the TVs that can be flexing their screen in the eyes of the buyer have inside more space for installing components, and they need the battery. In smartphones, everything needs to be placed much more dense.
Possible future
Everything goes to the fact that in the near future we will not get to buy a device that will turn around the wrist. It is impossible to achieve such flexibility while maintaining long stand-alone work. And we are not talking about that such an opportunity is not needed trite.
But all of the above does not mean that flexible smartphones will not at all appear on store shelves in the coming years. Manufacturers of such devices can go on another way. Apparently, smartphones will soon come on sale, similar to those familiar to us clamshells. They will be equipped with two displays - external and internal. The latter will be with a larger diagonal - it is he who will be able to bend in half. In the disclosed state, the smartphone will turn into a tablet. And in the folded it will fit into the pocket of the shirt, like a regular phone. With this implementation of the design, it is not necessary to achieve flexibility from other components, because in fact the device will consist of two halves. But they will not feel tightly to each other. And only ever in the future this parameter will bring up to 1 mm - while it is possible to crack the screen when it is achieved.
Summing up
, as it may,, and flexible smartphones be sure to appear. The development of such devices slightly slowed down. And externally, smartphones have long become almost the same. Companies need to highlight their product against the rest of the rest - the flexible screen will necessarily help it. And thanks to this, the average price of the smartphone can grow, which will allow manufacturers to earn big money. Buyers from this, of course, will not be delighted.
Are you waiting for the appearance of flexible smartphones? Or you do not need any folders, you are quite satisfied with modern monoblocks? Share your opinion in the comments.
