DOUBLE-SIDED SMARTPHONE
When it comes to smartphone screen design, Samsung seems to be bending possibilities more than other mobile phone manufacturers. Or at least, they beat the others to it. The South Korean tech giant was the first to launch a phone with a screen that curves at the sides. The company also filed a patent in 2017 for bendable screens to use in its upcoming foldable phones. Now, Samsung wants to make its smartphones double-sided, adding a second screen on the back of the device.
In a design originally submitted for patent at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in April 2017, Samsung put forward three potential smartphone models including one that has a screen on the back.
BACK-TO-BACK
An extra screen on the back of a smartphone has its uses, supposedly. The most obvious of which is that users need not flip to the front to check an incoming call or text message. Notifications can be quickly viewed using this alternate screen, in a manner that’s perhaps better than in Samsung’s existing curved screen phone models.
However, Samsung isn’t the first or only smartphone maker that’s considered the idea of a phone with a screen on the back. In 2015, a crowdfunded, dual-screen smartphone project called the Siam 7x surfaced. Then, two years later, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Meizu released a phone with an additional, smaller screen at the back, almost similar to the one in Samsung’s patent.
Could the Next Smartphone be Double-Sided? Samsung Thinks So. [Futurism]