Samsung Display's Folding And Sliding OLED Could Preview Galaxy Fold's Future

The dream of the folding smartphone or laptop is an easy one to understand. We can probably all get behind more usable screen area in a smaller chassis. Flexible OLED displays made the folding smartphone dream a reality a few years ago. Since then we've seen a number of impressive, albeit imperfect, iterations and form factors come out of the folding phone space. Samsung, the largest Android manufacturer (via Counterpoints Research), has largely led the charge on folding phones, although some other manufacturers like Motorola, Oppo, and TCL have also had a stab at getting them into the hands of consumers. 

Since folding phones became popular, flexible OLED displays have been used by Lenovo for the ThinkPad X1 Fold, and ASUS in the ZenBook 17 Fold OLED. The diversification of form factors makes you wonder what else is possible now that flexible OLED technology is becoming more widespread and commoditized. A new showcase by Samsung Display hopes to push the boundaries of flexible display tech even further. 

While most of the flexible OLED designs we've seen so far (with one major exception from TCL) have been folding displays, we have seen manufacturers play with rolling devices (which Samsung calls "slidable") in prototypes and showcases. Samsung Display builds on this trend in January 2023 by debuting a flexible OLED display that both rolls and folds, delivering more than one way to expand the device's productivity. Samsung's "Flex Hybrid" display is a 17.3-inch OLED unit that folds and "slides" into a much more compact form factor, coming in at between 13 and 14 inches when folded up. 

Samsung's Flex Hybrid displays come in two flavors, similar to the Samsung Flex S and Flex G devices from earlier in 2022. The Flex Slidable Solo unfolds and then expands in one direction, while the Flex Slidable Duet unfolds and can slide in two directions. It's unclear whether or not we'll see this technology on any production devices, but given Samsung's push for folding mobile devices and the form factor of the Flex Hybrid displays, it's entirely likely we will see this tech appear in something similar to a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold, which reduces its 16-inch display down to a 12-inch footprint when folded up. If Samsung were to adapt the Flex Hybrid displays to a smartphone form factor, it could mean devices will be more adaptable to their users' needs in the moment.