Skip to main content

Report says LG will ship flexible phone screens this year, and beat Samsung to the glory

lg optimus g pro touchscreenWill the next major LG smartphone have a flexible display? If a report in the Korea Times is accurate, then there’s a good chance it will. The article concentrates on LG’s rivalry with Samsung, then slips in a very intriguing sentence right at the end. It states LG is working on flexible displays, which we already knew, but has entered into a partnership with Korea’s finance ministry, and, “aims to ship its first batch of flexible displays later this year.”

This comes after LG Display announced a huge increase in funding at the beginning of the year, confirming at the time a high percentage of the research and development budget would go on so-called advanced technologies, including next-generation flexible and transparent displays. It looks like it’s already beginning to pay dividends.

Recommended Videos

Samsung has been the primary contender for releasing a flexible screen device for some time, and showed its Youm concept hardware during its CES 2013 press conference. However, it has been careful not to speak to soon, saying the tech is still not ready for public release. LG has also been pushing the flexible screen tech boundaries for a while, having been responsible for the first flexy e-paper display which found its way on to the Wexler eReader last year.

However, LG also has a history of talking up exciting screen tech, only to be beaten to the mainstream market by someone else. For example, it made a lot of noise about its 5-inch, 1080p smartphone screen when such a high resolution on such a small scale was almost unheard of, but it was HTC making headlines with the Butterfly/Droid DNA first.

That said, we’re hopeful LG will give us a flexible screen this year, although it’s likely to be marketed more as an unbreakable display than anything else, thanks to the lack of flexible processors, batteries and other essential internal components stopping our bendy phone dreams from coming true. Not that it matters, as a screen which won’t break when we drop our phones still sounds pretty good to us. On which phone could the flexible screen make its debut? Well, the rumored Optimus G2 has supposedly has a late 2013 release…

Andy Boxall
Andy has written about mobile technology for almost a decade. From 2G to 5G and smartphone to smartwatch, Andy knows tech.
Study says hourly rise in screen time increases risk of myopic vision
Person looking at their phone.

Late in 2024, a comprehensive study published in the British Journal of Opthalmology claimed that “the global prevalence of childhood myopia is substantial.” Based on the current trends, it predicted that by 2050, the number of children and young people with near-sightedness issues will stand roughly at 740 million.
The trends are concerning, but at the same, the scientific community is also puzzled about the role of increasing screen exposure and how it affects our eye health. Well, it seems there is a relationship between daily screen time and the prevalence of myopic vision in users across the world.
As per a meta analysis published in the JAMA journal, there is a correlation between increasing screen time on a per-hour basis and the risks of myopia going up by 21% in users of smart devices such as phones and large-screen electronics.

Rising screen time ups the odds of myopia
The report, which analyzed over 45 studies covering over 0.3 million subjects, notes that there is a notable dose-response link between a person’s daily screen time — especially following a 1-hour increment — and their odds of developing myopia. “Myopia risk increased significantly from 1 to 4 hours of screen time and then rose more gradually thereafter,” claim the experts behind the study.

Read more
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. iPhone 16
Samsung Galaxy S25 vs Apple iPhone 16.

There is little doubt that Apple and Samsung are the biggest rivals in the flagship smartphone market. Each February and September, both companies unveil new smartphones to outdo each other. This year, Samsung's Galaxy S25 is set to launch following the release of September's iPhone 16.

While the Galaxy S25 features few design changes compared to last year's Galaxy S24, Samsung has incorporated many new technologies and software improvements, making it an AI-focused smartphone ready for the spotlight. With the second generation of Galaxy AI and the Gemini system at its core, the Galaxy S25 aims to usher in a new era of AI-driven smartphones.

Read more
Samsung aped iPhone filters, but served it better on the Galaxy S25
Using filters on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

With the arrival of the Galaxy S25 series, Samsung introduced a bevy of camera-centric changes. Take for example the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which upgrades to a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor, a new Spatio Temporal filter for blur reduction, 8K capture across all lenses, default 10-bit HDR recording, and more. But the company silently gave a massive boost to filters.

So far, users have only been able to pick a filter and capture media with the effect applied on top. There was no scope for fine-tuning the filter characteristics in real time. That limitation has finally gone to the grave with the Galaxy S25 series.

Read more