Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 2 is currently the most sophisticated foldable phone, but future Galaxy phones could go even further with a rollable design

We discovered this thanks to a newly granted patent filed by Samsung engineers and discovered by Patently Apple The patent details how Samsung could design a device with a rollable display and specifically cites smartphones as a potential use case

The patent does not guarantee that a particular idea will eventually become something that can be purchased However, the fact that a company is iterating on an idea hopefully means that users will get at least some small benefit from its work

The plan described in the patent, titled straight "Rollable Display Device," details that the flexible screen is attached to a small cubic frame that can either be wrapped around rollers in the frame or around the frame itself The plan states The user can remove the magnetic edges of the display and pull it out as much as needed Once that is done, the user can either rewind the display themselves or activate a mechanism to rewind the display, depending on which version of the patent they are looking at

The screen itself is made of an OLED or LCD display surface and a support structure underneath This structure is there to keep things sturdy and to house the circuitry needed to supply power, touchscreen receptors, and data to the panel The patent claims that the precise structure of the support allows it to be rolled into cylindrical or polygonal shapes

In the text of the patent, the designer admits that this is not a comprehensive design Nor is it intended that the dimensions or scale of the drawing be exact This is meant to be an outline, not a concrete product, but exciting all the same

We have seen rollable screens become real-life prototypes thanks to LG's rollable TVs unveiled at CES 2019 and TCL's telescoping smartphone concept; LG, like Apple, is considering producing a rollable smartphone We know Perhaps rollable smartphones will be the future high-tech battleground for smartphone companies, just as foldable ones are today