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Huawei, Chinese display maker teaming up for 8-inch foldable smartphone?
- HUAWEI is reportedly working with display maker BOE to bring a foldable smartphone to market.
- The display brand is tipped to be working on four foldable phones from two companies.
- BOE is showing off a foldable phone and tablet at an industry expo this week.
We’ve heard reports of HUAWEI’s foldable smartphone before, but now it seems the company is working with Chinese display manufacturer BOE to make it a reality.
According to Korea’s ET News outlet (translated version), the two companies are working on a foldable smartphone with an 8-inch display. This comes just over a month after a previous report, which claimed Huawei was targeting a November launch in order to beat Samsung to the punch.
The latest report adds that BOE could be working on four foldable phones from two companies. We can probably count Samsung as one of these clients, as it has an in-house partner in Samsung Display. However, it wouldn’t be a surprise if another Chinese brand, such as Xiaomi or Oppo, has teamed up with the local display maker.
Xiaomi has previously filed a patent for a device with a foldable display, while leaks of the firm’s bendable screens purportedly surfaced in 2016 too. OPPO has also produced a foldable phone patent.
We have a rough idea of what to expect from BOE’s screens as well. The Chinese display maker is at the SID Display Week expo in Los Angeles (from May 20-25), specifically touting foldable displays at its booth. In fact, the company has announced that it will be showing a 5.99-inch foldable smartphone and a 7.56-inch foldable tablet.
More specifically, BOE has also detailed its new WQHD AMOLED foldable screen at the expo. The foldable screen has “minimum dynamic bending with a radius of only 1mm” and can be bent roughly 100,000 times. The display maker added that, when folded out, the flexible mobile display can be used as a tablet or monitor.
Other smartphone brands tipped to be working on foldable displays include Lenovo, LG, and ZTE. At this stage, however, it looks like Samsung and HUAWEI could be first out of the gates.