How Do the New Foldable Smartphones Work?
posted September 27, 2021 by Achyut Shastri
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip - Source: The Verge
A couple of years ago, we thought that flip phones were a thing of the past. Recently, however, they have made a comeback. Ever since Motorola redesigned their widely popular RAZR flip phone as a flip smartphone, companies like Samsung have been making their own version of the newest craze.
New foldable smartphones can bend their screens without any damage occurring, allowing them to be able to fold down into half the size of a playing card, so that they can easily fit in your pocket. One question I am sure that you have about these new flip phones is how do they work?
First of all, let’s see how the screen folds. If you were to fold the screen of a normal iPhone, your screen would definitely not work anymore and you would be out at least $500 to replace your phone. With this new technology, you can fold it and it becomes more portable with no damage at all. These companies use new kinds of flexible glass that can work with the display. For example, Samsung, pioneering in this new tech with their first Z Flip phone, used an extremely thin glass and named it “Samsung Ultra Thin Glass”, or UTG. However, UTG became highly unreliable. Whilst Samsung claimed it would hold up against scratches, the screen was “easy to scratch after all” and “went on to fail an aggressive dust test,” says The Verge. In their latest version, they use a new type of screen that is more flexible and more protective by using Gorilla Glass’ new Victus glass as well as a new Armor Aluminum body to reinforce it.
Below the screen, there are electronics that run the display like circuit boards and display panels. How do they work? They use new kinds of foldable circuit boards to run the display which cannot be damaged during everyday use. They also use a new type of display panel that can fold itself along with the circuit board so that the display does not suddenly stop working when you’re close to getting a new high score in Geometry Dash. To fold the entire device, they use hinges linked to all the foldable components that fold the device seamlessly without any apparent errors.
These new flip phones are a marvel of technology. Using their pioneering technology, they make the smartphone more evolved as well as efficient and practical. All in all, the effort that companies put in to make the foldable display work was well worth it.