Samsung Reiterates Plan to Produce Foldable Galaxy Note and Galaxy S; Eyes 2018 Release
Once again, Samsung reminded the public that somewhere in their pipeline is a foldable all-touchscreen smartphone.
This time, Samsung Electronics president of mobile business, Koh Dong-jin, revealed that the said device was intended to be launched under the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S lineup.
Koh addressed the local media in South Korea during the official release of the Galaxy Note 8 in the region. At the same event, he briefly discussed their ongoing plans of producing the foldable Galaxy Note device.
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However, Koh admitted that his company has yet to overcome several production hiccups to perfect the device. The Samsung exec said (via The Korea Herald): "We have a plan to adopt a foldable display in our roadmap. We are currently addressing some technological hurdles to commercialize such a device."
It was a rare event for Samsung's head of the company to specifically identify a project that was not yet even ready to be shown as a prototype. What was even more interesting was Koh giving a timeline target of its release despite what he already mentioned about some technological difficulties.
"We will launch a foldable device when we are fully ready, and we are aiming to do so next year," Koh added.
This was not the first time Samsung teased about an all-touchscreen smartphone that could be folded, thus providing an interface for a smartphone and a tablet.
Back in 2012, reports had it that Samsung launched the product called Youm that would give them a "thinner, lighter, and unbreakable" display that was mainly made up of sheets of film instead of glass – the common composition of typical OLED displays.
One year later, at one of Samsung's exclusive events, the company presented a video teaser that briefly showed how the foldable device would look like as a phone and a tablet at the same time.
In the same press conference, Koh reportedly thanked their loyal Galaxy Note fanbase and once again apologized for what happened with the defunct Galaxy Note 7 last year.
It can be recalled that Samsung was forced to globally recall the product after massive reports of spontaneous explosions. Earlier this year, Samsung produced their findings that said there were varying causes of the fires but they generally started in the wrong installation of the device's battery packs.
