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Samsung OLED prototype is more bendy than ever, but what if you crease it?
Those ultra-thin flexible OLED screens have a lot of promise, and it's easy to get carried away with design concepts using the nascent tech, rather than look at the reality. That's why this small, bendy OLED from Samsung is so refreshing: It's the real deal, albeit a prototype. At a tech demo in San Antonio, Samsung showed off this 6.5-inch flexible OLED. That's actually pretty big as these roll-up screens go, and the display is said to be more flexible than previous prototypes.
Since this OLED boasts better bendiness, it got me thinking: What would you do if you accidentally bent an OLED screen too far, permanently creasing the sleek display? Watching a creased screen would be way worse than a dead pixel, and I can think of a number of ways it could happen: Stuff gets piled on your gadget, you sit on it, etc. Does that make OLED gadgets more fragile than others? I would say yes. But is there a simple technological solution? What do you think?
OLED-Display, via Engadget
By Felipe 058 at 2:22 PM ON 05/27/09
Maybe something similar to shape memory alloys, and by that I only mean that it acts in the same way.
By JP at 3:52 PM ON 05/27/09
Maybe if they included a thin layer of memory alloy like ( Felipe 058 said) on the back that would prevent it from creasing? Or if they used a thin layer of that gel stuff that hardens on impact.
By flaq at 4:02 PM ON 05/27/09
just make a round handle that the screen rolls into like a scroll shape
there you can house the battery and electronics, and also protect it
if it had a spring/lock mechanism like a measuring tape it would be cool
By Old Man Dotes at 4:03 PM ON 05/27/09
It's no more fragile than the glass substrate used on conventional LCDs. I've seen them cracked due to twisting, sat on, walloped on the edge, and dropped.
A relatively thin - say, 4mm - layer of a heavy fabric like Kevlar or even canvas would prevent creasing by accident.
By Mihos at 5:05 PM ON 05/27/09
More fragile than what? If you crease any current display, you end up with a shard of glass in your eye...
By jeese at 1:14 AM ON 05/28/09
@flaq has it right, a small tube it scrolls up in to. I mean come-on, it's already been in Sci-Fi flicks. The rest of you are idiots.
By theoriginalgiga at 10:21 AM ON 05/28/09
Agreed with flaq and jesse, rollup screens would be friggen awesome and a lot easier to store imo. whip it out on the train, read, get to your destination, it rolls back up, you carry it like a largish pensil tube, drop it into your bag if you want. drop wifi and an audio jack on the unit and maybe even a mini web cam and you got yourself something you can read and chat with people on.
this technology could change how we view mobile computing.
And to those who think they'd crease it, what about your cell phones, are you very careful with your Iphone? why not take the same amount of care with all your tech?
By Anonymous² at 5:50 PM ON 05/30/09
This reminds me of a not-so-famous sci-fi tech device from a show called "Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict". The device in question was a futuristic all-in-one cell phone device with a hefty camera and a (drumroll, please) roll-out display (presumably OLED) with self-stiffening tracks to keep it rigid -- called a Global device. I wanted (and still want) one of those.
By codey at 3:38 PM ON 07/07/09
I think this will be a widely used screen not only because it's flexable but because it's flat.
By synergy at 2:55 PM ON 01/23/10
If u roll it up u lose the the whole reason 4 making it thin + flexible in the 1st place ! ! ! ! Samsung has already demonstrated a foldable cellphone display where the oled is creased in the middle and folded in half. If that is possible with a .2 mm display, then it could probably be made to fold over more than once removing the need to worry about creasing.
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