Curved smartphones are about to become a thing, at least in South Korea where the locals will be able to buy the Galaxy Round and a rumored LG phone that’s allegedly called the “G Flex”. But how exactly are you supposed to put a battery inside a phone that’s all bent out of shape? Simple, you make a battery that’s all bent out of shape. Sounds easy, but it isn’t.
Curved batteries are just one of the three technologies that LG has said will go mainstream in the future. The other two are cable batteries and stepped batteries. Focusing on the latter for a moment, stepped batteries are simple to understand. Most batteries are solid rectangle. But most phones have some additional space inside if you just put a smaller rectangle on top of that bigger rectangle. That’s a stepped battery, and LG is already selling a phone with that technology inside, their flagship G2.
As for cable batteries. It’s pretty much what you’re imagining. A cable that can store power. Now granted, you’re not going to be able to carry a two meter long cable and charge your smartphone with it, but it’ll come in handy when you need to power things like smartwatches or other such wearable computing devices.
Why doesn’t LG’s competitors (the most obvious one being Samsung) talk about their battery innovations? Technically they do, but in a totally different market. Tesla is rumored to be powering their next generation electric cars with Samsung batteries.
