Samsung’s foldable Galaxy X concept keeps making the news, but Samsung isn’t going to be the only company to launch devices with foldable screens that can switch between phone and tablet modes with ease.
ZTE has already launched such a concept, and Apple is supposedly developing one with LG to keep it a secret from Samsung. LG, meanwhile, is working on its own foldable phone technology, a new discovery shows.
Just like Samsung, LG is also filing patents that prove it’s currently researching foldable smartphone designs and technology, and GSM Info just dug up one of them. But the following images hardly feature the hot foldable phone design you may be dreaming of.
For starters, we’re looking at a design approach similar to ZTE’s. The following device looks like two smartphones that were joined together at birth on one of the sides.
We still have unpleasant bezels around the screen. When folded, the screen disappears, and the user would interact with the external display as seen in the following image. That big circle near the bottom can only be the fingerprint sensor. Ew! Also, the phone is quite thick.
But wait, there’s more ugliness. A secondary concept imagines a device that, when folded into smartphone mode, doesn’t feature a display on the exterior. Instead, the rear cover is pushed to the side to reveal a transparent section that would act as a partial screen for notifications, time, and other quick info.
A cover on the back that slides? Color me worried.
In both designs, we can see rear- and front-facing cameras.
Remember, this is still just a patent, so there’s no guarantee that LG will actually use this design in future commercial products.
