Samsung plans to introduce a smartphone with a curved
display screen, an executive of the South Korean company said Wednesday.
D.J. Lee, Samsung's head of mobile marketing, made the
announcement at an event in Seoul to roll out the Galaxy Gear smartwatch and
Galaxy Note 3 smartphone.
Unfortunately, that's about all the detail he provided -- no
exact release date, no details on the design, no price and no word on where it
will be available.
Curved screens are a rarity among smartphones, which
typically feature flat, rectangular displays. But Samsung has been tinkering
with next-generation screens for a while. Early this year at the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company showed off prototypes of a line of flexible display
screens it calls YOUM.
"This new form factor will really begin to change how
people interact with their devices and open up new lifestyle
possibilities," Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung's display
lab, said at the January event. "And it's only going to get better."
In a video, they teased a smartphone with a bendable screen
that opens up into a smallish tablet.
Berkeley also demonstrated how a phone display screen that's
curved along its edges would open up exponentially more space for viewing
content.
A bendable, plastic display screen could also be virtually
unbreakable, although it's unclear whether the new phone -- which could be a
version of the new Galaxy Note 3 -- would be plastic or some sort of step along
the way.
Samsung has made a Rolls Royce of a television, the $9,000,
55-inch KN55S9C, with a curved screen. And Samsung's Galaxy Nexus
smartphone, released in 2011, had a slight curve to its screen. But the new
model will presumably take the concept further.
"I'm expecting the company to aim for an even more
extreme curve with its next phone," Devindra Hardawar wrote
for VentureBeat. "With its large-screen Galaxy
Note lineup, Samsung has shown that it isn't afraid to step into slightly
oddball territory. The Note also proves those gambles can pay off for
Samsung."
A curved screen would also boost Samsung's status as a
leader on the mobile innovation front. Samsung Galaxy phones have outsold
Apple's iPhone during various periods over the past year, as Apple has been
dinged by critics who say the company's phones are no longer breaking new
ground.
There were similar criticisms
of the newly released iPhone 5S, which
was viewed by many as a baby step forward, although reviews
of the device have been mostly raves, and it sold a
record-setting 9 million units in its first weekend on the market.
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