LG's Rollable Phone Is Dead, But Samsung Will Give You A Slidable Screen Instead
Just over a year ago, LG announced that it was shuttering its smartphone division. One of the biggest casualties of the South Korean brand making an exit from the smartphone market was the LG Rollable, a device packing a novel rollable screen mechanism. The phone was canceled after LG publicly showcased it at CES, but surprisingly, it popped up online in an unboxing video with the complete retail package earlier this month. Oppo's similar rollable phone, the X 2021, has also been stuck in development perdition for a while. But it appears the slideable screen form factor is making its way to the PC segment, as well.
This looks great… #Samsung shows off its slidable display at Intel Innovation event pic.twitter.com/VPIx71eoEY
— Mathures Paul (@MathuresP) September 27, 2022
The first day of the Intel Innovation 2022 event saw Samsung Display chief JS Choi taking the stage to reveal a slideable screen device for PCs. The Samsung executive introduced it as "the world's first 17-inch slideable display for PC." In the folded state, the screen is more like a 13-inch tablet in the same size ballpark as the iPad Pro; it then slides open to reveal a larger 17-inch screen real estate. The slideable screen prototype definitely looks promising and like the next evolution of flexible PC designs after Lenovo and Asus experimented with the foldable screen form factor.
Don't hold your breath for it
Choi didn't go into detail about the screen resolution figures and whether the slideable concept was an OLED panel or an IPS LCD screen. In May 2022, Samsung Display showcased a few screen innovation prototypes, and one among them was a slideable OLED panel. However, it was geared toward phones with an Android UI running on them instead of PCs. We also don't know if Samsung only plans to sell slideable panels for PCs, or whether it will be the first brand to actually make one such PC. Unlike its foldable smartphones that come in clamshell and tablet hybrid form factors, Samsung has been playing it relatively safe with its lineup of Galaxy Book laptops.
But that's not where the tale of uncertainty for innovative PC form factors ends. Microsoft hasn't really been keen on optimizing Windows for crazy form factors like foldables, and now, slideable PCs. In fact, the company abandoned its own ambitious dual-screen foldable PC, the Surface Neo, after announcing it at the 2019 hardware launch event. In fact, Microsoft even dumped the Windows 10X project, which was set to power foldable touchscreen-first PCs like the Surface Neo. With such as shaky history, any OEM on the planet would think twice before burning millions of dollars to make a slideable PC with a poorly optimized operating system to boot.