On March 18, according to Letsgodigital, recently, a latest foldable mobile phone patent of Samsung was published by the International Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The phone based on the patent can not only be folded and used, but also double the screen area of the phone by opening a scroll drawing similarly. The user can pull the original screen, driving the hidden screen to move out of the folding phone, thereby increasing the area of the entire mobile phone screen.
Compared with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip series folding phones that have already been listed, the phones using this patented design are also compact square when folded, with a similar area, but when unfolded, the size of the phone will be 2 times the size of the Galaxy Z Flip unfolding screen area.
Published patent documents show that Samsung filed the patent with WIPO in September 2021. The 60-page patent document, titled "Multi-Fold Electronic Devices," is internationally available on March 10, 2022.
The sample phone shown on the Samsung patent is as compact as the existing Galaxy Z Flip 3 in its most compact form, but the maximum display area is much larger than the Galaxy Z Flip 3. By moving the original screen and pulling out the hidden screen, the user can double the phone display area. Fully unfolded, the phone shown on the patent is twice the length of the Galaxy Z Flip 3, up to 30 centimeters.
The pull-out screen and camera are mounted on the upper part of the phone's housing. This design leaves enough room for the lower part of the phone's case to integrate the battery. In this way, the top and bottom frames of the phone remain intact, allowing the device to maintain optimal collision protection.
Thanks to the unique structure, users can also pull out the screen from the middle, so that the user can see an upright screen and a landscape screen on both sides, similar to two Galaxy Z Flip devices facing each other, and the two upright displays are magnetically pulled towards each other.
This screen state is ideal for playing multiplayer games because the user cannot see the screen of the opponent of the game face to face. Samsung also provides virtual game buttons for the device, including an arrow key (D-pad) for users to use the device more flexibly.
The patented device shows no separate front screen, like the existing Galaxy Z Flip series. Users can also pull out only the hidden screen instead of expanding the device in the way of a folded screen, so that they can use the phone folded. At this point, this small piece of the pulled screen can be used as a front-facing display.
From the description of the patent document, there is a camera installed on the back of the phone and a punched camera on the screen, which seems to be similar to the dual camera mode of the Galaxy Z Flip.
There are two key technologies in the patent: curling screen technology and folding screen technology. The curling screen technology is used to complete the pulling or pushing back of the screen, and the folding screen technology is used to complete the unfolding or closing of the screen.
The entire equipment can be divided into three layers of structure: housing components, support components and display components.
We can see that as the user pulls, part of the phone screen changes from a folded state to a tiled state with the guide to a new position, and the hidden screen part begins to occupy the position of the previous part of the screen. From this, how to ensure that users do not feel creases or breaks when using the mobile phone is the key.
The patented demonstration of the device folds very well. In November 2021, it was reported that Samsung was developing a new Flex OLED display with a curvature of up to 1.4R, which could be suitable for the patent.