BBC News, 7
October 2013
Related
Stories
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| LG already sells televisions using its flexible screen technology |
The South
Korean firm said it hoped to start selling the first handsets to feature the
tech next year.
The news
comes weeks after Samsung made a similar announcement.
Samsung
said it intended to launch its first product - a special edition of the Galaxy
Note 3 - later this month.
Both
companies already use the technology to offer curved OLED television sets.
Although
the displays used in the TVs are in theory "flexible", they are
mounted in fixed shells so they cannot be bent or otherwise re-shaped by the
owner.
A press
release from LG's display division indicated its handset screen would curve
from top-to-bottom rather than side-to-side, the design Samsung described in a
recent patent.
It said the
advantage of using the tech was that the panel was "bendable and unbreakable".
"The
new display is vertically concave from top to bottom with a radius of 700mm
[28in], opening up a world of design innovations in the smartphone
market," LG added.
 |
| LG had previously developed a flexible e-ink display |
One
industry watcher was not convinced the product, as described, would have much
appeal.
"I
think LG is doing this to show it is innovative, to do something different and
to stand out from the rest of the bar-style screen devices that we have at the
moment," said David McQueen, a mobile device expert at tech consultants
Informa.
"But I
don't think consumers are going to be that interested by a slightly curved
design.
"However,
we do think there will be interest if flexible screens are used to offer
different form factors.
"For
example a device that you snap round your wrist or a traditional shaped
smartphone whose screen wraps around the sides onto a bit of the back so that
the edges become touchscreen rather than hard buttons."
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