SCREENS GET AHEAD OF THE CURVE
TECH COMPANIES ARE STARTING DOWN THE LONG ROAD TOWARD DISPLAYS THAT ACT LIKE PAPER.
FLEXIBLE DISPLAYS HAVE CAPTIVATED THE imagination since they were first invented in 1974, in a lab where so many pioneering technologies were born: Xerox PARC in Palo Alto. But the path from lab to mainstream consumer electronics has been famously difficult. Samsung was the first to sell a consumer electronics device with flexible display technology. Its Samsung Galaxy Round—a phone-tablet hybrid that featured a curved 5.7-inch screen that mimicked the shape of a slightly cupped hand—hit consumers’ hands in 2013.
For the past decade, Samsung has iterated on the technology, and this past holiday season it released the Galaxy Z Flip4 and Fold4 phones, which finally feel like more than just proofs of concept. The Fold4, in particular, is a revelation, with a screen that unfurls into a small tablet. It also has a more compact hinge, a longer battery life, and a better camera system than previous Fold phones, along with a persistent and customizable dock for apps, which is great for multitasking.
Malleable screens are starting to appear on desktops and mounted to walls, too. LG’S OLED Flex is another standout, a 42-inch Tv-monitor hybrid that goes from flat to curved with the touch of a button. The wallmounted Vestaboard does not rely on the same LED technology as Samsung and LG. But its text message board, which features 132 colorful flaps that spin to spell out missives that users can schedule via a mobile app, offers a vision of remotely programmable, personalized displays.
Vestaboard’s old-school romance mixed with high-tech wizardry—it evokes the mechanically flipping letters and numbers of a traditional train departures board—may be cool, but it also epitomizes the larger is
sue facing flexible displays. “Manufacturers maybe haven’t found the perfect form factor, or the perfect product yet,” says Stuart Higgins, a researcher at Imperial College London who has worked on flexible electronics. “Every new technology starts out emulating the previous technology in some format, and that’s the challenge at the moment still.”
Higgins envisions flexible electronics ultimately serving more utilitarian functions, such as a thin diabetes-monitoring device that could be applied to a user’s skin like a sticker. Until then, as showcased by the bevy of modular screens that Samsung debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, including one that fits in your pocket but can then fold out and be stretched to a 12.4inch display, the technology will continue to feel like a tantalizing glimpse of the future.