Samsung reveals 360-degree foldable smartphone display

Samsung Display has unveiled the In&Out Flip, a 360-degree foldable smartphone, at CES 2024. LG Display also showcased gaming OLEDs, automotive OLED panels, and a car speaker.

A model showcases Samsung Display’s latest In&Out Flip which wasunveiled at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. [SAMSUNG DISPLAY]

Samsung Display, a panel-making affiliate of Samsung Electronics, teased a new line of products that can be folded both inward and outward at CES 2024 on Las Vegas.

The form factor, dubbed In&Out Flip, can be folded a full 360 degrees, with both sides functioning as touch screens.

“In&Out Flip is a technology that can provide a new alternative for consumers who prefer bar-shaped smartphones due to the thickness of foldable products,” said a Samsung Display spokesperson in a statement.

The company says it has tested the device's durability under extreme conditions. Visitors to the company's CES booth can witness the product enduring temperatures from minus 20 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius while basketballs are bounced on its panels.

Samsung also showed off its Rollable Flex, a device it first introduced last May. It's a flexible screen that can be unrolled, like a scroll, to more than five times its original size.

And the company continued to tout its “micro display” technology, or compact screens with high pixel density tailored to extended reality headsets, including mixed reality and augmented reality devices from companies like Apple, Samsung and Meta.

Among them was the company's high-resolution RGB (red, green and blue) organic light-emitting diode (OLED) on Silicon, or OLEDoS, which deploys organic light-emitting diodes on silicon substrates instead of glass-based ones to achieve greater pixel density and luminescence.

In the realm of larger displays, Samsung unveiled a new 31.5-inch ultra-high-definition (UHD) OLED monitor and the world’s first 360 Hz OLED monitor.

Samsung Display’s booth at CES 2024, which showcases automotive display solutions including the new Flex Note Extendable. [SAMSUNG DISPLAY]

Another area of focus is automotive display, as cars increasingly become places where people can juggle work with entertainment.

The new Flex Note Extendable, designed for vehicle interiors, can be retracted to 11 inches but extended to a maximum of 17.3 inches with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

LG Display is also developing OLED technologies for gaming and automotive displays.

Its CES 2024 lineup includes an array of gaming OLEDs spanning from 20 to 40 inches, including the 27-inch quad HD (QHD) gaming OLED panel that features the world’s first 480 Hz refresh rate for an OLED display. Higher refresh rates aim to provide smoother and sharper visuals, even during fast screen transitions, though the amount by which their impact is noticeable can vary by user.

LG Display also released a cluster of OLED panels for cars that can display gauges and infotainment features. These include the company's Plastic-OLED (P-OLED), Advanced Thin OLED (ATO) and Low-Temperature Polysilicon (LTPS) LCD.

The Ultra-large P2P P-OLED combines a 12.3-inch P-OLED dashboard display with 34-inch P-OLED center screen to seamlessly cover the entire dashboard.

Another 48-inch P2P LTPS LCD can cover the entire dashboard on its own.

LG Display’s 48-inch P2P Low-Temperature Polysilicon (LTPS) LCD panel and 18-inch slidable OLED panel showcased at CES 2024. [LG DISPLAY]

A new technology called “switchable privacy mode” allows passengers to keep their viewing information hidden from the driver.

For the rear seat, the company offers a 17-inch Foldable OLED and 18-inch Slidable OLED, both of which can allow screens to be put away when not in use.

It's also delving into sound quality. Its speaker utilizing “Thin Actuator Sound Solution” technology is 30 percent of the weight and 10 percent of the thickness of a conventional car speaker and can be installed in various areas within a vehicle.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]