The Flexible OLED Wars Have Started

Earlier today, LG announced that it would be mass-producing it’s flexible OLED display, targeted for use in smartphones. Not long after, Samsung came out and said something along the lines of “Hey, everybody, we’ve already been producing our flexible OLED screen for a little while.”

Looks like Samsung was keeping this quiet originally so their upcoming announcement about a smartphone with a curved screen would be a bigger surprise. While not yet officially announced, this device has for now been dubbed the ‘Galaxy Round.’ The Galaxy Round is said to have a concave curve from side to side, with the long sides straight and short sides curved in, while LG’s panel will have a concave curve from top to bottom.

Samsung’s panel will be lighter and thinner than LG’s panel, but will have a slightly smaller curvature radius. The LG panel will also be a full 6 inches diagonally, which is .3 inches bigger than Samsung’s 5.7-inch screen..

It remains to be seen what practical application the flexible screens will have. Personally, I think that if you have a screen that can be bent in any direction, it’s only a matter of time before you extend past the flex radius and kill some pixels. If the screen is a fixed curve, then that would seem to be less comfortable to use, and almost definitely less ergonomic. Maybe a curved screen is more comfortable when pressed against your face to make a call? Aside from that, I don’t think I would enjoy browsing the web or playing games on a curved screen.

This is, however, a big step toward fully flexible screens. Which will be really cool when we see those being mass-produced.