Folding screens have already reached the smartphone market, and although at almost prohibitive prices, they aim to be the technology that will revolutionize the market. It seems easy to implement a smartphone with a folding screen, but what about the PC market ? Intel has already shown its first functional models in laptops , so in this article we are going to tell you how this technology works and what could make it establish itself in the PC market.
Implementing a folding screen in a device, more than a matter of technology, will depend on the functionality. In a smartphone it makes certain sense because after all it is a device that we carry in our pocket, but if we transfer it to the PC market then it does not make much sense except in laptops and convertibles, although it is true that implementing these Screens will either make laptops unable to have a keyboard as such, or manufacturers will have to figure out how to get a keyboard apart from the screen.
How a folding screen works
First of all you should know that in reality this is not a technology that was invented this year, because in 2012 we could see prototypes such as Samsung Youm or an electronic ink screen shown by LG in 2012. In 2014 LG presented a prototype of an 18-inch OLED screen flexible enough to roll on itself in a 3-centimeter diameter tube. Therefore, what is new are the first commercial devices that have a flexible screen, but not this one as such.
The screens as we know them today base their operation on liquid crystal displays (LCD), built on a rigid glass base. This technology is of course based on an OLED matrix that is “printed” on a transparent and flexible plastic surface, and this is so because the properties of OLED displays allow the pixels to illuminate themselves without the need for backlighting. rear, thus eliminating the need to incorporate a rigid glass lighting matrix into the screen.
The same happens with the first prototypes of flexible screens, manufactured with electronic ink precisely because in this respect they have the same properties as OLEDs: they do not need to have backlighting and therefore the need for a rigid surface behind is eliminated, allowing it to be inserted into flexible transparent plastic sheets, which is precisely what allows the screen to bend and fold.
Flexible displays in the PC industry
During CES 2020 Intel introduced the first laptop / convertible model to implement a flexible display: the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold . Actually, more than a laptop it is a tablet equipped with a Windows operating system, which allows it to be “closed” as if it were a book. Of course, the screen is OLEd, in this case with a 13.3-inch diagonal for greater comfort when carrying the device.
However, as can be seen in the image above, this equipment is quite thick and, to be able to use it as a laptop, it is practically necessary to accompany it with an external keyboard since although an on-screen keyboard can be used, when evaluating its functionality has nothing to do with a real physical keyboard (which is not the same to use an on-screen keyboard to search for a video on YouTube than to write a text or to play games).
In any case, the technology is still in its infancy and it is to be expected that they will be able to implement folding screens in much thinner laptops, and even in those that can remove a sliding keyboard from the bottom to be able to use them with a physical keyboard. Apart from this, in the PC industry they really do not have much future, since obviously it does not make sense to implement PC monitors with flexible screens since the greatest advantage of these is that they allow devices to be carried from one place to another taking up less space.
It is possible, of course, that we do see this technology implemented in the PC industry for other purposes, such as digitizing tablets or other peripherals that are designed to be carried from one place to another and, as such, more oriented to laptops than desktop.