Flexible screens for smartphones are actually a pretty big deal. Once flexible OLED screens become commonplace, which will probably be next year, they’ll essentially make it much harder to damage your phone. Until then, though, it’s mostly a gimmick, like the Samsung Galaxy Dent, er, Round.
The Galaxy Round is, well, curved. That’s it. That’s all that’s different. The sad thing is that not even Samsung can really explain why making a smartphone with a dent in it is useful:
“As a result of its unique curved design, users can take advantage of round integration experiences like the Roll Effect that enables user to check information such as date, time, missed call and battery easily when home screen is off, and the Gravity Effect for creating visual interaction with the screen by tilting the device,”
In other words, you can do this. Really.
Beyond that, it’s a fairly standard high-end phone: 2.3 GHz quad-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, 13 megapixel camera. And it does look cool, of course, but that’s pretty much where it stops.
The good news is that this lays the groundwork to mass produce these screens, and LG is currently racing to put out their own dentphone to illustrate how awesome their version of the technology is. So we are maybe a year or two away from tougher smartphones. Until then, enjoy the Dent.