Samsung mass producing 5.7-inch flexible display; device coming 'within days'

The same day that LG announced it will be starting production of flexible OLED panels for use in mobile devices, Samsung have tried to one-up its Korean rival with a display-related announcement of their own.

OLED Info reports that Samsung has announced that it is mass-producing 5.7-inch flexible display panels and the first product to use this display will be out ‘within days’. Samsung’s own display has a number of advantages over LG’s panels. Most notably, it is even thinner than LG’s flexible panel. It is also a good 0.3 inches smaller.

This display can bend and won’t break if dropped

The plastic-based display is 0.12 mm, considerably thinner than the 0.44 mm LG panel. It is also much lighter, weighing in at 5.2 g, compared to LG’s 7.2 g 6-inch display. It can also supposedly bend more than the LG panel with a bend radius of 400 mm.

While we can only speculate on what device Samsung will be launching based on the new panel, rumours suggest that it is a weather-resistant version of the recently-launched Galaxy Note 3 or the Note 3 Active. The fresh variant of the Note 3 will use the same flexible Youm panel, which Samsung unveiled earlier this year at CES and which has gone in to mass production now. It is believed that the Note 3 Active’s display will have bent corners and will wrap itself around the sides of the device, thus giving users a sort of a ticker on the edge of the phone.

The prototype for a smartphone with a flexible display

It remains to be seen whether Samsung keeps its word of launching a new phone ‘within days’, but now that two major manufacturers have revealed their flexible display plans, we can expect some crazy form factors soon enough.