Samsung's latest idea is a Galaxy Z Flip that can fold both ways

Samsung is no stranger to wild foldable and rollable phone ideas and concepts. The company has previously filed patents for a phone that looks like a brick and unfolds and rolls out into a tablet. It has also experimented with some crazy rollable phone ideas. Now, the company has filed yet another patent for a foldable phone that folds both ways.

The patent filing shows a phone that looks fairly similar to a Galaxy Z Flip (via FixyFlow). However, the phone in the patent drawings has curves near the hinge, presumably to prevent the display from colliding with itself when folded inwards or outwards.

The patent also describes the device as being equipped with a curved display that curves on both sides. When the phone is folded inwards, the display will be in a “closed” position. However, the patent clarifies that the curved edges could still be used to display images to the user. Remember the Galaxy S7 Edge with its “Edge UX?” This sounds very similar, and could actually be a good idea.

On the other hand, when the device is folded outwards, the display will be fully exposed, and, per Samsung’s description, will offer a more immersive screen to the user. The company is also expecting users to carry their weird two-way folding phones in this configuration. That part doesn’t make much sense to me, though. Personally, I’d feel safer folding it inward so the displays aren’t exposed while I carry it.

Naturally, the patent goes into a lot more detail explaining how it could handle the various engineering challenges associated with a display that’s being folded inwards and outwards. If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty of it all, you should check out the patent filing.

As always, the usual disclaimers around patent filings apply here as well: Just because Samsung filed a patent doesn’t mean it’s actually working on a device like this. It doesn’t even mean it will ever work on it. However, it’s an interesting idea, and one that Samsung has definitely given some amount of thought to, and I, for one, would be interested to see how weirdly wonderful it could look in real life.