Finally a weird phone! Samsung’s next Galaxy may have a slide-out screen

This phone literally scrolls

IceUniverse, a tech analyst with a strong track record of accurate Samsung leaks, shared the following concept renders.

Samsung is developing a phone with a display that can extend from 16:9 to 21:9. Some people prefer a wider screen, while others like a taller form factor. This design could accommodate both, letting users adjust the proportions to suit what they’re doing. If Samsung can make it work, it could be a very appealing solution.Battery capacity is the big challenge, though. The sliding mechanism would take up a considerable amount of internal space, leaving less room for the battery. How much capacity could Samsung fit inside? And would it deliver enough battery life with the screen fully extended? Those are questions it needs to answer before this becomes a practical everyday device.

— Ice Universe (@UniverseIce) November 11, 2026

The two pictures show the phone in its rolled and unrolled states: it’s squat and square by default, but the display extends to transform it into a regular-looking smartphone. You would slide the screen up or down with your hand or just touch a button to unroll it.

From the back, you can see that the two halves of the phone would slide on each other to stretch and shrink the screen. There’s also a cutout to seemingly make room for the cameras when they’re hidden behind the backplate.

The design offers new interface possibilities

Inside, the display would roll on itself at the bottom of the phone, and when triggered, it would unspool – like pulling paper off a roll. The sliding mechanism would be motorized, so it wouldn’t even require manual pulling.

Such a design makes it easy to fit the phone into smaller pockets or use it single-handedly while still having a full-sized screen available on command. I imagine that’s the main appeal of the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and its predecessors, so we may see some customer overlap with the Galaxy Z Roll.

What would make the Galaxy Z Roll special is how seamless its transformation would be. Samsung may use that to its advantage by introducing new interfaces that suit this form factor. Just last month, the company filed a patent for an interface that shows saved info or alerts based on how far you’ve rolled out the screen.

Samsung is taking the assignment seriously

Naturally, a novel design like this comes with engineering challenges related to durability and battery life. From what I was able to dig up, Samsung’s patents show that it may have solved most of them already.

My colleague Abdullah analyzed some of these patents in more detail, but here’s the gist: the company’s display arm has been working on rollable displays for almost a decade, so a lot of the kinks have been worked out. In the Galaxy Z Roll, Samsung has reinforced the sliding mechanisms with intricate guard rails and placed a mesh of “slats” behind the fragile display to support it.

However, those reinforced sliding mechanisms take up space that would otherwise be reserved for the battery. Samsung’s answer may be emerging silicon-carbon battery technology that fits more capacity inside the same limited space.

Sources don’t mention any release dates, but new details usually follow a major leak like this. So we may be hearing more about Samsung’s first rollable phone soon.