Sure, this technically isn’t a folding phone, but it’s certainly an expandable one. By equipping a handset with a display that slides out to give you more surface area, Samsung is really catering to its users who use their mobile devices for watching videos, playing games, and other activities that require a larger screen. Of course, if you’re just sending a text or on a phone call, you don’t need a huge handset, which is why Samsung would allow you to slide part of the display back in for more basic functions.
While nothing’s official yet (remember that a patent doesn’t necessarily guarantee any manufacturing), it’s certainly interesting to see Samsung’s creativity at work. Unfortunately, we don’t know a ton about the prospective sliding phone, as design patents published by the U.S. or Foreign Patent and Trademark Offices only show off patent figures, rather than relevant information about the design itself.
All the same, it’s an exciting time for phone enthusiasts, who may soon find themselves with many more options that the standard one-screen design we’ve been stuck with for years on end. Samsung is also slated to show off a prototype of its foldable phone at Mobile World Congress 2017, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
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