Bloomberg: Samsung to release three sided phone during the second half of 2014, maybe

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Published 15 Nov 2013

When LG launched the G2 earlier this year, they made people’s jaw drop with the incredibly thin bezels around the device’s beautiful 5.2 inch 1080p LCD. But what if phones didn’t even have bezels? Better yet, what if the sides of mobile phones, the place where you typically see the power button and volume up and down keys, were all screen? According to Bloomberg, Samsung will release just such a device during the second half of 2014.

Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg isn’t really sure if the first phone to have this kind of display will be a Galaxy S or a Galaxy Note or something completely different, but I’ll take a stab at predicting that it’ll be option number three, a totally new product line. The only thing that worries me between now and H2 2014 is whether or not Samsung can begin mass producing flexible screens. We already know that LG is going to sell the G Flex in countries outside of South Korea, whereas Samsung’s Galaxy Round is limited to the company’s home country.

Why would you even want a phone with a display that wraps around the sides of the device? That’s a very interesting question that I’m sure Samsung’s marketing people are trying to answer. To quote Van Baker, Director of Research at Gartner, flexible screens are “a technology in search of a problem to solve.”