Samsung knows how to make screens and intends to prove it once again by launching a foldable laptop with an unprecedented diagonal. All at a more competitive price than those previously offered by the competition.
Laptops with a folding OLED screen can currently be counted on the fingers of one hand. A booming market that Samsung intends to invest by offering a new screen size and a more attractive price than those charged by other brands.
Samsung wants to bend everywhere
The Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 are the best-selling foldable smartphones in the world today. Samsung believes in this technology and intends to use it on larger screen diagonals that will be used for the brand’s future folding computers. A young market, but pushed by the giants of the screen industry such as LG, Sharp, BOE and of course Samsung.
Thus, Samsung Display’s annual shipments of OLED screens for laptops are only worth 960,000 units in 2020. A figure that rose to 5 million in 2021 and 5.94 million in 2022. For the year 2023, the Research firm Omdia anticipates 8.5 million shipments for Samsung, an increase of 43% over the previous year.
Mass production much higher than what the competition is able to do and which could allow Samsung Display to lower the price of folding OLED screens. Add to that the fact that the “Display” branch of the Korean giant would sell part of its production to the “Electronics” branch in charge of designing the final products. Enough to obtain more competitive prices than those practiced for the competition.
A new screen for Samsung’s foldable computer
Originally slated for this year, Samsung has finally flagged its OLED laptop for 2023. The PC would have a 17.3-inch diagonal, like the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, but boast a larger diagonal when folded. In effect, Samsung would manage to offer a “classic” screen size of 13.3 incheswhere its competitor’s laptop is only 12.5 inches when folded.
No foldable PC seems to have succeeded in offering a diagonal greater than 13 inches once the screen is folded. We can also cite the example of the second iteration of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold whose OLED panel is 16.3 inches, and 12 inches when folded. Some industry players are also talking about the American manufacturer HP which would release a 17.3-inch foldable PC in 2023 which would be much more compact when folded with a diagonal of only 11 inches.
Now comes the thorny issue of price. Lenovo’s new foldable computer will be sold from 2499 dollars, which is already much more affordable than the Asus ZenBook 17 Fold OLED, sold for 3999 euros. An encouraged price drop which should contribute to the democratization of flexible screens on laptops. Samsung being a leader in the production of OLED screens, it is expected that the brand will lead by example and offer an even more competitive price for its first laptop offered to the general public.
In the same way that a Galaxy Z Fold 4 aims to offer the best of a tablet and a smartphone, foldable laptops make it possible to no longer have to choose between portability and comfort. Enough to reconcile professional use with the consumption of multimedia content, all of which is enhanced by the advantages of OLED screens such as a minimum response rate and infinite contrast.
Source :
The Electric