Samsung to release a third foldable device design this year besides the Fold 4 and Flip 4
Back at the CES 2022 expo in Las Vegas this past January, Samsung announced a few unorthodox devices such as the quirky Freestyle projector/smart speaker or a new Smart Home Wi-Fi System to control your clever abode.
Tucked among all the TVs and household appliances, however, Samsung allowed us a sneak peak of its next generation of flexible and rollable display devices that give a hint where its design plans will be heading next. Besides the obvious tri-folding displays, of which we've seen many a Samsung patent before, there are now ones for bendy laptops that Samsung calls Flex Note, as well as a sliding display prototype that you can preview in the video above.
The Flex Note concept may be precisely what could see the light of day as soon as this year, if the Dutch Galaxy Club publication sources are correct. They claim that besides the next B4 (for the Bloom project, aka Galaxy Z Flip 4), or the D4 edition (for the Diamond project), this year Samsung will be releasing an N4 foldable device as well, which will be the start of a whole new series of bendy Samsung handset designs.
Whether this will be a phone or a different device, remains to be heard, but the N notation hints that this could be the Flex Note model Samsung showcased at CES. The Flex Note unfurls to a 17.3" OLED panel and then shuts down to something akin to a 13" laptop, just like this prototype of an upcoming foldable screen laptop from Asus.
The Galaxy Club's sources got corroborated today by famed Samsung leaker Ice Universe, too, who spoke about the possibility that Diamond could be a slidable panel device, while display analyst Ross Young chimed in that he will doublecheck his supply channels to see what Samsung is cooking for 2022 in terms of foldable device form factors release on retail shelves.
We previously had the Samsung slidable starting production by the end of 2022, then we heard it was pushed out. Will have to confirm if it was pulled back in or not. Thanks.
— Ross Young (@DSCCRoss) March 24, 2022
The sheer number of different variants shows that Samsung Display, the company's screen-making subsidiary, is very far along its shape-shifting panel plans, as these went from concepts to patents to prototypes to retail devices like the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in the span of just a few short years.
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