Samsung is about to unveil the Galaxy S8, a brand new flagship smartphone that promises new levels of sophistication for a mobile device, both when it comes to design and new features. But not all of Samsung’s upcoming innovations will make it into this year’s Galaxy S handset, and a new report sheds more light on the secret tech that Samsung demoed behind closed doors at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona earlier this month.
A source who attended one of Samsung’s private presentations at the Mobile World Congress shared some of Samsung’s secrets with The Korea Herald.
“Samsung exhibited new technologies, including force touch, OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) without polarizer, VR (virtual reality) headsets with high resolution and blue-less OLED,” the person said. “They are expected to be launched within one to two years.”
Force touch is something we’ve heard of before in connection with the Galaxy S8 series, and it’s Samsung’s version of the 3D Touch feature Apple introduced on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
The report also offers conflicting views on when Samsung will launch force touch. The article says that Samsung will use force touch in the Galaxy S8. At the same time, the source said the technology shown in the private room does not seem complete enough to be unveiled anytime soon. A recent rumor claimed that the Galaxy S8 will not have full-screen force touch functionality, and that only a portion of the screen will be pressure-sensitive.
“Another interesting technology was OLED panels without polarizer. When the technology is complete, this can significantly reduce power consumption,” the person said.
This is certainly good news for smartphone makers including Samsung, Apple, and anyone else looking to use OLED displays in future handsets. By ditching the polarizer, the OLED display can offer even better brightness while simultaneously improving battery life. The polarizer is an optical filter found above the screen that lets certain light waves pass and blocks others so that images are formed on the display. The following clip shows you what a polarizer does:
Samsung also secretly showed off a brand new VR headset at MWC. “They showcased VR headsets with 1,200 PPI (pixels of per inch). Considering the technology completion, a headset with 1,500 PPI is soon expected to be unveiled,” the source revealed. In case you were wondering, the Gear VR headset has 1,000 PPI.
Finally, Samsung also demoed blue-less OLED displays designed for people who suffer from color blindness.
Interestingly, the Samsung foldable phones we keep hearing about were not part of these secret presentations. Instead, the foldable phones were apparently only shown off to a few executives from wireless carriers.
