Devices with foldable displays will be the next big thing in mobile tech, with Samsung and Huawei racing to unveil the world’s first smartphone with a foldable screen. Other companies including Microsoft, Apple, Xiaomi, and others are also working on foldable handsets, reports have said, but a brand new rumor claims that Lenovo is creating a different type of foldable device — a foldable tablet with a screen as big as 13 inches.
According to South Korean news site ETNews, LG already inked a nondisclosure agreement with Lenovo and is developing the display that will be used in the device. It’s unclear whether the tablet will run Android or Windows, but LG Display will supply the screen at some point in the second half of 2019.
The unnamed Lenovo device isn’t a smartphone, the report notes. Assuming a 4:3 aspect ratio for the 13-inch screen, the display would measure 9 inches when folded. A 16:9 aspect ratio would translate to a folded device with a screen of 8 inches. Either size is hardly pocketable, and the resulting device should still be rather bulky.
Samsung is expected to make a foldable handset with a 7.3-inch screen when it’s open. Huawei is making a foldable phone with a screen measuring seven or eight inches. When folded, the display area is reduced to four or five inches.
The report also notes that LG may provide similar screens to other companies, including Dell and LG Electronics, which implies that Lenovo’s rumored device won’t be the only tablet with a foldable screen next year.
A few days ago, we saw evidence that Microsoft is developing its own foldable hardware, with a new patent describing in great detail the hinge mechanism that would allow the screen to fold without being damaged and without hindering the user experience. There’s increasing evidence that Microsoft is still working on a Surface Phone, and previous reports also noted that Dell might be creating a similar device.
All this seems to imply that we’ll see a variety of tablets with foldable screens next year, and it’s likely many of them will run Andromeda, the Windows 10 OS variation adapted for devices with foldable screens.
