LG is already mass producing a flexible display curved smartphone

LG is already mass producing a flexible display curved smartphone

Reports are coming out of LG’s home territory of Korea that the company is already mass producing a curved smartphone that utilizes a flexible OLED panel. The phone is expected to carry the name LG Z and could appear for sale before the end of the month in Korea.


What LG has apparently done is take a 6-inch flexible OLED panel and fitted it into a curved shell to form the smartphone. The end result is a fixed shape curved smartphone, but one that is thought to have advantages over the more typical flat phones when it comes to holding and using it. It’s a more natural shape to hold, basically.


It seems unlikely the curving of the handset will be very extreme. While you can make the display and casing curved, the core components inside the handset remain solid, flat objects. LG will be forced to either use a smaller battery or two batteries inside the Z, which will ultimately raise the manufacturing costs and complexity of the phone, or lower battery life considerably.


The components being used in the LG Z have yet to be confirmed, but a Snapdragon 800 processor, support for LTE, and a 1080p display are expected alongside Android as the mobile OS of choice.

Early this year Samsung demonstrated a couple of prototype flexible displays carrying the brand name YOUM, one of which was suitable for smartphones. However, they haven’t launched a product using it yet, and clearly LG isn’t ready to let us start folding or rolling up a display in one of its handsets yet, either. Maybe next year, then.