HOLDABLE

COMPANIES, even the most innovative of them, have run out of new things to do with smartphones. When the new flagships are launched every year, there is disappointment all around at the lack of radical new designs and features. Maybe it is the right time for someone to finally come up with that elusive foldable phone that has been discussed for years.

There have been flip phones before, but the foldable phone of not-too-distant future is meant to be much more than a screen, a small keyboard and a hinge in the middle. It may even have a foldable screen, an idea more associated with Samsung than with anyone else. Samsung wants to be the first off the mark to make that phone and D.J. Koh, head of Samsung Mobiles, has confirmed as much by saying that the company not only wants to come up with a world-first but spark off a new line instead of a one-off.

Several concepts have been featured on the Internet to predict the possible form a Samsung folding phone might take (one is expected to be launched later this year), but no one, not even Samsung, thinks such a phone will have mass appeal because of its pricing. It is bound to cost a fortune, thanks to the cost of manufacturing. But then, a folding phone with two large, bright displays could be used to boost productivity, multitask, make gaming more exciting or handle phone cameras in more interesting ways.