The Future Of Flexible Displays Will Reinvent Smartphones

One of the things I learned early in my career is that if you want to get a glimpse of the future, you need to go to technology trade shows focused on components and deeply entrenched in the world of engineering. Here, you see the technology that will likely show up in consumer gadgets two to three years down the line.

 OpinionsOne such show is the Society for Information Displays (SID) conference, which took place last month in Los Angeles. Dedicated to the world of display technology, SID showcases all types of screens, including next-generation OLEDs for TVs and laptops, as well as the star of this year's show: flexible and even rollable displays.

Visionox kicked off the event with a keynote that highlighted its foldable display in a video, but I did not see an actual model in its booth. On the other hand, BOE, one of the largest makers of displays in China, showed off two types of mobile devices with working flexible display. A smartphone with a display surface of close to 9 inches folded completely in the center, and even in that folded position, the image and videos worked flawlessly.

The second phone it showed had an actual bendable screen. The 5.5-inch screen folded in half to make a smaller device that's easier to carry.

I saw a few other flexible screens I can't yet discuss, but it is clear this is the next big thing in smartphones.

If you look closely at the BOE flexible display in the photo up top, you can see why foldable displays matter. Our smartphones today pretty much top out at 6-inch screens, but BOE's flexible display adds about 3 more inches in viewing space, making it more like a tablet that fits in your pocket. The flexible or foldable display in the other photo provides even more portability.

While these screens are early demos, I'm told they are not far off. In fact, we could see one in a smartphone from a major manufacturer in early 2020. My best guess is that given the challenges in actually making these flexible screens in high volumes, they might not have a dramatic impact on smartphone designs until 2021-2022.

E Ink foldable displayIn the short term, the smartphone industry is well on its way to giving us an interim approach. By early 2019, look for more smartphones with dual screens that, when opened, double the size of the viewing space. In this case you will be viewing two screens and thus have two displays for content. A seam in the middle separates them, in contrast to the smartphones with flexible displays in which the content is delivered on a single display.

Another new concept in displays at SID was shown by E Ink, which is best known for supplying the electronic digital paper used on Amazon Kindles. In the picture on the right, you can see a prototype of a rollable display using its digital paper display.

It's only in black and white but is an interesting twist on electronic digital paper. I also saw color E Ink screens that are destined to be used in all types of advertising displays in stores and any place where signage needs to be changed or updated on a continual basis.

While I do think that AR and mixed reality glasses tied to a smartphone will have a more revolutionary impact on mobile computing eventually, the introduction of flexible and foldable displays is important to advancing the designs of smartphones in general. I personally like the idea of having a smartphone that when opened up could become a tablet.