Foldable display on smartphones: This is how the technology works

This technology has been on everyone's lips since Samsung and Huawei introduced the first foldable smartphones. You can find out here how the foldable displays work and what advantages and disadvantages they bring.

How do foldable smartphones work?

Folding the smartphone makes the built-in OLED display possible. Because OLED displays are thinner and more flexible than LCD displays.

In addition, the foldable smartphones no longer have a glass pane on the display, but a plastic pane.

The advantages of foldable smartphones

The foldable smartphones from Samsung and Huawei, which were presented in Barcelona in 2019, bring some advantages:

• The biggest plus is that you can always have a tablet in your pocket because you can fold it into a normal-sized smartphone.
• Furthermore, a foldable smartphone is a lot more stable than a conventional tablet. Because when folded, it has a smaller surface area and a greater thickness than tablets.
• And although you can enjoy the advantages of a tablet with it, you still have the option of using foldable smartphones as normal mobile phones, such as for making calls, texting or taking photos.

The disadvantages of foldable smartphones

As many possible advantages foldable cell phones bring, in practice there are some disadvantages:

• The biggest sticking point with foldable smartphones is the folding technique. No one knows yet how durable the folding logic is and how long it will last under everyday conditions. Therefore, you have to consider these first foldable cell phones as a big beta test.
• In addition, the first foldable cell phones are still very expensive. The starting price of such mobile phones will only decrease in the next few years.
• Furthermore, the folding technology unfortunately affects the IP protection of the foldable smartphone, ie the same water and dust resistance protection does not apply as for other devices from the same manufacturer.

Galaxy Fold in price comparison