AMOLED

29 'AMOLED' stories July 2011 - October 2013

Galaxy Round with curved display ‘just a prototype’, not likely to hit the USA

Ben Lovejoy Oct 17 2013 - 3:55 am PT

The Galaxy Round, which Samsung touted as the world’s first smartphone with a curved display, turns out to be just an extended production run of a prototype device – according to a source cited by SamMobile.

Samsung is looking to produce only limited quantities of the device, even in South Korea. It’s apparently a prototype device to test curved OLED displays, similar to devices like the SCH-W850 and the Samsung Galaxy S II HD LTE (SHV-E120S), which were also produced in limited quantities in order to test AMOLED and HD AMOLED displays, respectively.

But while this particular device is unlikely to go on sale in the U.S., now that Samsung has proved the technology is practical, we can be fairly sure that company has other curved display phones and tablets in the pipeline. LG also appears to have a curved smartphone on the way, in the form of the G Flex.

Samsung concept shows off transparent, flexible, 3D AMOLED displays

Jordan Kahn Dec 5 2011 - 11:06 am PT

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f4AhTiQkWwk]

Samsung today released the video above showing off a flexible, transparent, concept device that might be the company’s own take on Microsoft’s recently released Productivity Future Vision 2011 concept video.

Judging by a rough translation of the Korean video, the device would be a flexible, foldable, 3D capable sheet of glass (approximately 10-inches) with context sensitive UIs. Of course we’re not likely to see anything close to Samsung’s concept in the first batch of flexible displays, which are expected from the company sometime in 2012. However, the concept is yet more proof that Samsung is, at the very least, strongly considering bringing a flexible device to market. Samsung originally showed off their flexible AMOLED tech at CES 2011 with the 4.5-inch displays seen in the clip below:

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Rumor: Samsung looking to bring concept Galaxy Skin phone with flexible AMOLED display to market in 2012

9to5 Staff Sep 27 2011 - 2:28 pm PT

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Phone concepts are quite often gorgeous to look at, but most (if not all) end up filed under the ‘Not Feasible’ drawer. Not for Samsung. The company set out on an ambitious project to design a sci-fi smartphone with a flexible AMOLED display. This is not a concept, mind you, but a real thing. The display can be bent around a cylinder with a one-inch diameter, allowing the phone to become a clock, a wrist-watch a mouse and so forth. It draws from an idea co-developed by Professor Haeseong J. Jee and designer Hye Yeon You. Samsung unveiled a prototype at the CES 2011 show in Las Vegas and today International Business Times claims it is coming in 2012:

The ground-breaking feature of the futuristic device is that it is flexible and can take various shapes. The displays are rollable, bendable and can even survive blows from a hammer. It is the first of its kind and is set to mold a new definition for smartphones. Samsung previously confirmed the production of flexible AMOLED displays that may debut in the second quarter of 2012.

The AMOLED display itself uses plastic polyimide substrate instead of glass, allowing for high flexibility. Other features of the so-called Galaxy Skin smartphone are said to include an eight-megapixel camera with Auto Focus, Self Shot, Action Shot, Panorama Shot, Stop Motion and Add Me features, a 1.2GHz CPU with 1GB of RAM and apparently a future Android version code-named Jelly Bean.

Consider these stats more of a reference that the actual hardware features set in stone because, you know, it’s just a concept (until it hits the market) and we all know where great concepts usually go – to the Island of Misfit Toys.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJEHp15Hoo0]

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Samsung closing 20M units gap between Nokia to become #1 phone maker in H2 as Android reaches 50+ percent penetration

9to5 Staff Aug 1 2011 - 10:51 am PT

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If you deemed the nearly 20 million smartphones Samsung shipped in the June quarter an impressive figure, brace yourself for even more extraordinary achievement in the second half of 2011 as DigiTimes reports that Samsung “has placed orders for 30 million touch sensors used to make four-inch AMOLED screens”. Suppliers Chunghwa Picture Tubes and others are said to be the prime beneficiaries of Samsung’s booming smartphone business. Of course, Samsung sources touch sensors from other suppliers so their final order may well exceed the quoted figure. As evident in the below chart from Asymco’s Horace Dediu, the Korean company’s been growing at an exponential rate, eclipsing Apple’s 142 percent annual growth in iPhone shipments.

The company, however, all but displaced Apple, which just toppled Nokia to become the world’s leading smartphone vendor. Being the leading Android backer, Samsung’s success has helped the Google operating system reach more than 50 percent platform share of all smartphones, more than double the iOS share of 19 percent, per latest Canalys survey. That said, it’s entirely plausible that this year Samsung could overtake Apple and become both the world’s leading smartphone vendor, while Apple remains the industry’s leading player in terms of revenues and profit. Also notable, a gap between Samsung and market leader Nokia is narrowing fast…

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AMOLED displays to differentiate 2011 Android superphones from Apple’s iPhone

9to5 Staff Jul 5 2011 - 7:22 am PT

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwEVV7PMn10]

Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, or AMOLED, is a display technology from Samsung which has so far been limited to their high-end devices such as the Galaxy S series smartphones. It has worked out well for the Korean firm: They’ve been advertising the crispness and sharpness AMOLED enables as the hardware feature setting apart their smartphones from Apple’s iPhone 4 which employs a regular LCD display with in-plane switching (IPS) technology. Even though iPhone 4’s Retina Display-marketed LCD IPS display sports wide viewing angles and crisp 960-by-480 pixel resolution, it falls behind the AMOLED technology which features vivid colors, true blacks, high brightness and low power consumption.

All those wonderful goodies are said to be adopted by “numerous mobile phone vendors” in the second half of this year, reports DigiTimes. The publication explains that Samsung Mobile Display “has began production of AMOLED panels with the 5.5G production lines in May to further increase the penetration of AMOLED panels”. Samsung and its carrier partners have been making a lot of noise with the Super AMOLED Plus display featured on the Galaxy S II smartphone.

For example, the company aired a series of television commercials focused on the Super AMOLED Plus display alone. The Korean Herald asserted in May that Apple might use AMOLED in iPad 3, but it’s unclear why Samsung would enable its rival to tap the one distinct hardware feature that differentiate their products from Apple’s gadgets.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=788MeU_msMI]

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