Samsung's New Galaxy X Has Been Hiding In Plain Sight

Samsung’s Galaxy X is happening, that much we know. What we didn’t know was that Samsung ‘revealed’ the foldable phone’s design five years ago.

A patent recently awarded to Samsung (spotted by Patently Mobile) for a new foldable phone looks suspiciously like a device that featured in a commercial the Korean company aired at CES in 2013, check it out below.

If you can move past how uncomfortable the commercial is to watch – and, I understand if you can’t – you’ll notice the phone/tablet hybrid that folds in half looks almost identical to the newly submitted patent below.

Patently Mobile
A new Samsung foldable phone patent spotted by Patently [+]

Patently Mobile
A new Samsung foldable phone patent spotted by Patently [+]

The concepts are very similar. The patent features a slightly thicker-than-normal-phone with a wrap-around display that, via a hinge, folds out into a tablet that’s double the size. There’s an averagely thick bezel and buttons on the display.

Also, the patent appears to suggest that the foldable phone will operate as a normal handset without the need to fold it out to use it, which also appears to be the case in the commercial.

If this does end up being the design for Samsung’s Galaxy X, it would make perfect sense. Of all the patents and design concepts – and, indeed the no-name manufacturers that have attempted to make a flexible phone – this is the most intuitive and exciting design.

It’s likely to be the most popular too, since that Samsung commercial has been around for years and the render image used in the advert has been the de facto image for all articles about foldable phones.

If this patent turns out to be accurate, then it looks like Samsung has been sitting on this design for years and simply biding its time until it had the manufacturing and technological ability to make it.

Of course we should take patent news with a pinch of salt because many submitted and awarded patents never actually make it to market. But given the similarity between the patent and concept, I’d be surprised if the final product didn’t look somewhat similar. The question is, will it give Samsung an advantage over Apple?