Samsung is still figuring out how to release its futuristic Galaxy Fold. But has also been busy on another based on a new patent filing which has been made publicly available, which details a Samsung device with what appears to be a vertically scrolling display which can slide in and out of the handset’s body.
Samsung filed the patent on November 28, 2018 (so before the Galaxy Fold troubles), but it has only now been published online.
The patent states that it is for “an electronic device comprising a flexible display having an expandable display area is disclosed” and describes the screen as “a flexible display mounted in the slider such that at least a part thereof is exposed, and disposed to allow a display area to be expanded according to the withdrawal of the slider and allow the expanded display area to be concealed in the housing according to the entrance of the slider.”
The device pictured in the drawings shows a vertically extended handset with a flexible display on rollers, allowing you to significantly increase the size of the screen.
Compelling as this patent is, there’s also the question of how durable a phone like this would even be, what with a sliding mechanism that could be as vulnerable to dust particles as the Galaxy Fold was. Moving forward, phones that incorporate a foldable display and moving parts will likely attract skepticism before excitement, but here’s to hoping that Samsung figures out a way to pull this one off, assuming this ever does make it to market.
