Samsung patent reveals wraparound smartphone display concept

Samsung may not have perfected foldable screens quite yet, but the Korean tech giant has some other wild ideas up its sleeve.

A new patent awarded to Samsung last week reveals an ambitious phone concept that includes a screen that wraps around the entire device, from front to back. The patent was first spotted by  the tech website Let’s Go Digital. 

Since it’s just a patent filing, there are no official product photos or videos showing the concept device in action. Instead, we have a bunch of illustrations that give us an idea of how a phone with the wraparound display might work.

For example, when someone takes a photo of someone else, the subject of the photo can see what the camera is seeing. That means the rear camera could also be easily used as a higher quality selfie camera, too.

One of the most fascinating applications of the wraparound display involved translation. Samsung included an illustration of two people having a face-to-face conversation where the language barrier between the two was resolved by the phone. As one person holds the device up between the two, it listens to their conversation and displays a translation of what is being said on both sides of the screen.

Since the screen wraps around the front and back, there would be a small area on the top of the phone that could display notifications. Users could theoretically see a notification on the top of their phone and swipe it down to the front to reply to a message, for example.

Oh, and by the way, it doesn’t appear to be foldable.

It’s also important to note that a patent filing doesn’t mean Samsung will ever actually release a phone like this, but it’s as good an indication as any that Samsung still has big ideas about phones after the Galaxy Fold hype. Early impressions of the expensive foldable phone were positive, until it became clear that it might not be especially sturdy.

Samsung is also less than a month out from launching its first 5G phone in the United States, so the company clearly isn’t shy about experimenting with new technology early.

If foldable phones never take off, Samsung could potentially turn to this idea as an alternative means of packing more screen real estate into reasonably sized phones. If not, at least we got some funny patent illustrations out of it.