The first time that LG Display has reported to working on a foldable tablet panel. That is larger than other foldable screens being developed by its competitors.
The world’s largest display maker Samsung Display which makes up to more than 95 percent of the OLED market. They had developed a 7.3-inch foldable panel for Samsung Electronics’ first foldable smartphone while China’s BOE and Huawei are working on an 8-inch foldable smartphone.
LG Display is taking a different strategy predicting foldable displays will be renewing competition within the tablet PC market, rather than in the smartphone market.
Foldable phones with smaller screens expected to have some efficiency issues. While folded tablet PCs with larger screens will have better portability.
Another issue for foldable phones is durability because the screens should kept in shape even after repeated use. Foldable displays seem to a better fit for tablet PCs that are a lot less used than smartphones.
Foldable tablets
So Lenovo and LG Display have teamed up to bring the first foldable tablet to the market. They are planning to make 13-inch which is the biggest in the industry and can easily used on a laptop, even when they folded. But a 13-inch display would just 9-inch in size when folded but the aspect ratio will become 4:3, while for a 16:9 aspect ratio that display would be just 8-inch in size when folded.
Such a size is still good for day to day use even for a folded tablet. But a 6 or 7-inch display for a smartphone would become much smaller even they folded. On the other hand, tablets not used so often as smartphones, hence the frequency of folding is much lower making the former suitable for commercialization of foldable panels.
LG Display also wants to sell the same 13-inch foldable panel to Dell and LG Electronics. All of this is in unconfirmed rumor territory for now, as LG has understandably declined to comment.
