Foldable screen

Huawei Mate X smartphone folds face out

The rival handset-tablet hybrids have contrasting designs.

Huawei's Mate X places its fold-out screen on the outside of the device, so that it covers the front and rear of the phone when closed.

In both modes, the display is larger than Samsung's. Huawei's device is also flatter and thinner when shut.

However, unlike Samsung's Galaxy Fold it does not have a second display on its reverse side.

One analyst attending the launch event in Barcelona also remarked that a crease in the screen appeared to be visible.

Foldable screens are coming to revolutionise TVs, smartphones—and your clothes

     

The next frontier for the screen would be to shrink it even further. To have foldable screens that could behave like newspapers did in Harry Potter, or even be worn as clothes that never go out of fashion. And while there’ve been many interesting approaches to achieve such feats, they have always posed serious limitations.

Now, Debashis Chanda of the University of Central Florida and his team may have overcome one such critical limitation—with technology that can be used to build a flexible and ultra-thin display.